Ad Astra
by Falkesbane
Summary: At twenty-five, Lavender Brown is lonely, bogged down by work, and hung up on that prat Seamus. It's really a good thing that her moderately batty old boss is sending her off to dark forests.
1. Part One

> **Note**: This is a complete story in several parts. I will be posting one part a week, in an attempt to apologise for not updating my other stories. I _am_ writing them, you see, but I have decided to be a student sponge for the summer and live with my mother, and the computer with all my story files on it will not have an Internet connection, so it's hard to update those with no Net and a busted floppy drive. I have to write and not upload. So, instead, I decided to write a new story for the summer, on my mother's PC, and you all can look for updates on the older ones in September. I am terribly sorry to the people who are waiting for a _Confessional_ update. I hope you enjoy this story; it was fun to write, and a little unconventional, too!   
  
Standard disclaimers apply. I solemnly swear I am up to no good.
> 
> ****
> 
> ...............
> 
> **Ad Astra**  
Falkesbane
> 
> ...............
> 
> **Part One**
> 
> ...............
> 
> If you would have asked me when I was a teenager, I would have very confidently and very dismally told you that Very Interesting Things only happen to Very Interesting People. Adventures and successes happen to beautiful girls like Parvati Patil—   
  
Ugh, why did I have to mention _her_ almost straight off? This is not starting well.   
  
—or brilliant girls like Hermione Granger, not old dull average Lavender Brown. In fact, I probably would have kept to this view only a short year ago. What can I say? I've always been a most secret sort of pessimist. I lived in my own small house. I had a very routinised sort of life. I was twenty-five years old, my best friend was married to my longtime boyfriend and having little Finnigan-Patils to crayon up the walls of her too-big house, and I was well-convinced that I would spend the rest of my life as a crazy cat-loving old lady.   
  
Not that Mr Peabody was not a great companion. It's easy to have a fulfilling relationship with a creature who only miaows at you once in a while and is willing to purr and nuzzle and just generally be contented. Mr Peabody has been more faithful than any male.   
  
And that's just sad, isn't it? I may as well start collecting more cats now, so I can be well stocked up when I reach old age.   
  
But, Mr Peabody aside, I felt fairly alone and therefore I did what every other lonely person does. I dove headlong into my work because, well, everyone knows that loads of boring work are a great substitute for human interaction. I told myself that I was a bright and busy career woman, fierce and independent, with no time for useless men who would just laze about and philander anyway and eat all the lovely pastries you made for your mum's birthday party the night before you were meant to go—   
  
Damn it! I'd better not spend this whole time injecting little barbs at Seamus and Parvati. Especially since I am completely and utterly _over_ it, and no longer wish that either of them will spontaneously burst into flames.   
  
Much.   
  
Long story short: Seamus and I were going to get married. No, scratch that. I _thought_ that Seamus and I were going to get married, and _Seamus_ thought that he was just going to go on stringing me along and shagging the illustrious Ms Patil on the side. So, in typical bad-drama fashion, I found out, I freaked out, and the whole debacle ended with them married and me getting pats on the back from gossipy people I barely remember from school, calling me Poor Lavender. Hmmph.   
  
At the time, I moped and moaned and theorized that Seamus was justified – because who would pick the short Lavender, with her dishwater hair, over the gorgeous, glossy, why-isn't-she-on-a-magazine-cover Parvati? But now I see the real truth of it. Seamus Finnigan is an indecisive prat who can't make a choice unless circumstances push him into it. Why, look at what a jerk he was over that whole Dumbledore's Army thing in our fifth year – he couldn't even join until everyone else had and he felt like an outsider!   
  
Prat. Prat. Prat prat prat prat prat.   
  
And he also snored.   
  
I hope Parvati has to wear earplugs every night.   
  
All right. Frustrations vented. On with it, then.   
  
I was working under a nice but crochety old woman called Francesca Vega, who had even taught at Hogwarts back in the Dark Ages, and was generally regarded as quite the supreme authority on all things astronomical. Even though she was approximately one hundred, she still loved her research. Only she needed an assistant, which is where I came in. I had taken Outstanding NEWTs in both Divination and Astronomy (and – er – not-so-Outstanding grades in all my other subjects), so I was a fair candidate who wouldn't go wandering off to greener pastures.   
  
She was not quite approving of my tendency to equate astronomy with astrology, being an academic and all, but there had just been a war on and all the students had gone into exciting careers, like magical weaponry, or chasing down war criminals. I was the only applicant for the post. There weren't many who were boring enough to want to sit and look at the night sky and live like horribly nocturnal vampires.   
  
I still can't sleep very well at night. I need at least an afternoon nap.   
  
So Professor Vega, being old as the hills herself and no longer able to traipse her way through mountain and plain to get her own astronomical readings done, recruited me to do the grunt work. It was a fair job for someone of twenty-five, I suppose; I could afford my own house in Godric's Hollow and keep myself in copies of _Well-Dressed Witch_.   
  
Shut up, shut up, it's an addiction, I swear it, even though I could never afford the absolutely _stunning_ new autumn Malkin's robes. I wish I could. Those things would so transform me in an instant. Especially the red ones. Wow.   
  
But, to get back on track, Fran was undertaking this rather insane project of charting the whole night sky. And, as any casual stargazer knows, the closer you are to light and civilization, the harder it is to make out stars. So one evening I Apparated to Vega's office, fully expecting to be loaded up with my usual mound of boring paperwork and thinking of how I might sneak in a nap during the day, but Vega was sitting there with her eyes gleaming and a powerful portable telescope (only the top of the line for us!) twirling lazily in her hand.   
  
"Fran?" I ventured, thinking that the eye-gleam might be a sign of impending senility.   
  
She clucked at me. "You're late, Lavender."   
  
"Only by ten minutes," I muttered. She was always so particular! And my hair had just been misbehaving terribly.   
  
"I'm sending you on a field mission, my dear. I want you to observe the area and draft up some star charts, see if your smart little eyes can spot anything new up there."   
  
_Oh, joy_, I thought sarcastically. "Where?"   
  
She smiled grandly. "The Forest Ateratra."   
  
"The Forest Ateratra? What's that?"   
  
"The darkest place in all England." She said this wearing a huge grin, as casually as she might have said, _Oh, it's just the park around the corner_. "Some say the sun never even touches the branches of the trees. You ought to get a great view from inside it – just find a good spot to observe, and you'll be set."   
  
I stared. "Er – Fran – that sounds a trifle – dangerous."   
  
"Oh, you can bring your wand," she said enthusiastically. She was the sort of woman that was hard to discourage. It was lovely, in a way, when she wasn't sending me off to uncharted dark forests. "It won't be a thing compared to when I was doing field work over on the Russian steppes – years ago, that was – and it was cold and there were giants."   
  
"Fine," I said glumly, thinking that it wouldn't be as bad as it sounded. Heck, I could even think of it as an unwanted vacation – at least it would be some time free of paperwork. My wrists were beginning to hurt from using too many quills. "For how long?"   
  
"Say – three days? Time to set up and observe and get your charts done."   
  
So that's how I found myself staring at the gnarled trees at the edge of the Forest Ateratra, listening and swearing I could hear terrible screaming from the inside. I knew, right then, that I would keep my wand at the ready for the whole three days.   
  
Vacation, indeed. Okay. I have to impart, here, the sheer horribleness of this forest. Think of the Forbidden Forest at the edge of Hogwarts. Then multiply that by ten. Then add three. There you have it.   
  
I had a tent and pack and bedroll strapped to my back. I am certainly not a tent and pack and bedroll sort of woman. I am a hotel and room service and sexy-French-concierge-tipping sort of woman. I was questioning the sanity of Francesca Vega. "Three days," I muttered to myself. "Three days! I can't even wash my hair properly! I am so asking for a raise when I get home."   
  
Feeling entirely uneasy, I began my trek into the Forest. Why couldn't Fran have decided we needed charts from a beach on the South of France? Sunbathing and little drinks with umbrellas sounded _really_ good.   
  
It wasn't so bad once I got over the twisted trees and the unnatural darkness. As a professional astronomer, my eyes were accustomed to the lack of light, and adjusted themselves quite quickly. Still, it wasn't the best setting imaginable. I was reminded of the horror films I had seen with Seamus in his parents' house – as a half-and-half, he liked Muggle things, only he'd told me jokingly that those scary pictures were specially meant to scare women into pressing up against men for comfort.   
  
Prat.   
  
Ahem. The first few hours were not so bad. I had to fend off a bunch of particularly bite-happy Bowtruckles, but, apart from that, I was fine. I was simply focused on finding a patch of clearing so that I could observe the sky. I was even thinking of my career a little – maybe with perfect star charts I could finally prove that astrology really is real!   
  
It soon became apparent, though, that finding a patch of clearing big enough to see the sky was not going to be easy. The trees were everywhere, and I was getting mighty sick of pushing their branches out of the way and scraping my head when I didn't see one on time.   
  
"Stupid twisty trees," I muttered viciously. "I wish the Muggles'd come and cut you all down." This thought pleased me for a bit – scores and scores and Muggles with their axes and saws and whatever else they used. Take that, nature! Then I remembered that this forest was probably Unplottable, and therefore Muggles could never find it to mercifully chop it apart.   
  
This realization brought on another one.   
  
I was lost.   
  
Hopelessly lost, and I didn't even know it.   
  
Idiot Lavender! I hadn't bothered to make any markings or look to remember where I had come in or trace my own path – the charm would have been easy enough, too – and of course Unplottable things have a way of being large and inconstant and insanely difficult to navigate.   
  
"Okay, okay," I coached myself as I continued my aimless trek through what my boss had quite cheerfully and madly called the darkest place in all of England. "Just keep on moving, Lavender, you're bound to find something." I thought about Apparating, but I'd been stupid there, too, not bothering to memorise the place I'd come in so that I could picture it coming back. Knowing me, I'd have mis-Apparated and splinched myself right over a swamp or something.   
  
It was starting to get dark. "_Lumos_," I muttered, and then, "Point Me." There. North would _eventually_ get me out if I simply kept along the same direction. Never mind that the direction was currently leading me into an especially dark-looking tangle of trees.   
  
I went in, my wand still lit. I took careful steps, fully expected to be accosted by something horrible. I tried to remember all my Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. Funny how everything important from school fades away, but I can still remember all the lyrics on the Weird Sisters' album _A Chimaera Ate My Socks_.   
  
Shut up, it's a great album.   
  
So I kept coming, humming the title track (_It has the head of a lion! Body of a goat! I hope it forgets about my hat and coat!_) and feeling thoroughly annoyed with myself for having such a bad memory. What I came upon in the forest turned out to be quite different than what I had been expecting.   
  
It was simply fantastic – not just a single patch of grass, like I'd hoped for, but a great big area with a stream running right through the middle, and high rocks piled up around one side, like a protective wall. I forgot all about being lost. "Lavender, you brilliant explorer!" I said to myself as I shucked off my belongings. "You, my girl, are awesome."   
  
I really should quit the habit of talking to myself. It does come off as insane when I think about it.   
  
I set up the tent and bedroll with little difficulty, surprisingly enough, and I was beginning to think that perhaps I had missed my calling as an infamous outdoorswoman. Living off the land, chopping down trees, breathing in the sweet outdoorsy air, and all that good stuff.   
  
I swear, the Forest Ateratra made me delusional.   
  
I took off my shoes and socks and stuck my feet in the stream; they were slightly blistered from my long hike, and the water felt cool and wonderful. Why did such an oasis of loveliness exist in a such a dark forest? I ate a little packet of Fizzing Whizzbees I'd brought with me and waited for it to get dark enough to set up my telescope.   
  
It was too late to react when I heard the sound. It was almost like a humming – the running-together of drumbeats. For one mad moment, I thought it really was drummers. Then it hit me – _hooves_. Sets and sets of hooves.   
  
_Please, please_, I prayed, _let it be something harmless, like Abraxans._   
  
I knew I wouldn't be that lucky. Just call me Bad-Luck Brown.   
  
Frantically, I tried to grab my things and hightail it out of there, but it was pretty much in vain. Centaurs were coming out of the tangled trees, dozens of them, all of them halting in shock when they saw me standing there barefoot with my hands full of hastily gathered astronomy equipment. Soon I was surrounded. I dropped the equipment; it landed on the grass with a loud thud.   
  
"Oh, dear," I said, under my breath.   
  
Understatement of the century.   
  
"I – I – I—"   
  
"A human at our council-ground?" one of them gasped.   
  
"Such disrespect!" another shouted. "She has come to the seat of our herd!"   
  
"I didn't mean to – I – er – I didn't come here to see you—" I stammered. They all looked very large and very menacing in the early starlight, and of course I was completely graceless in the face of danger.   
  
"See how she dismisses us!" a large centaur shouted.   
  
There must have been a hundred of them. I started to back away, but that only placed me closer to the centaurs standing behind me. I was bloody well trapped. "I'm not dismissing you," I said hotly. "I'm an astronomy researcher – I only came here to look at the stars – I didn't know this was your ground!"   
  
Why, oh, why hadn't I argued with Fran? I could have been sitting down on my favourite chair reading, with Mr Peabody purring in my lap, but instead I was being angrily confronted by loads of scary centaurs. _Fran_, I thought, _I quit!   
  
Well, if I live to quit._   
  
One of them came towards me. He was huge, probably the biggest of them, with a shock of dark brown hair and narrowed eyes. By the starlight, he looked just about like a murderer come to attack me. "Astronomy researcher?" he sneered. "More foolish human tricks. You cannot even begin to understand the stars."   
  
"I'm sure I can't," I said beseechingly. "I'm an idiot; you're all brilliant and wise and wonderful. I didn't mean to come here. I didn't even want to; I had to for my job. Please let me go."   
  
"She's lying to you, Padear," one of the centaurs called.   
  
"I swear, I would _never_ want to interfere with centaurs. In fact, I find you all very fascinating." I tried to be polite.   
  
It was true and had always been – they_are_ such interesting creatures – but it was definitely the wrong thing to say. "Fascinating?" Padear roared. "We do not exist for your entertainment or your curiosity, human!"   
  
"I didn't mean it that way and you know it! I meant that I respect you!" I was angry. I couldn't help it.   
  
"We do not need your pitiful respect."   
  
"Stop twisting my words around!"   
  
"Don't accuse me, human."   
  
"I'm not," I said helplessly. "But you won't listen. I'll leave and never come back – just let me go!"   
  
A few more centaurs had trotted up to where Padear was standing. "She has come to our sacred ground, Padear," one said. "Such insolence cannot go unpunished."   
  
"Agreed," Padear said quietly.   
  
"What?" I shouted. "That's not fair! I—"   
  
But Padear craned his head upwards and gave a great cry. The centaurs rumbled forward, stampeding, all of them wearing terrifying expressions of matched concentration. I cowered as they closed in on me, instinctively holding up my arms to shield my head, even though I knew it would do no good. I couldn't move; I couldn't say anything. I was simply paralysed with fright, and I was certain that I was ticking through the last few minutes of my life.   
  
And then their hooves were on me, seemingly stamping out my very breath, my very heartbeat, and then I gasped and hollered and swore and then everything went black. It was almost relieving; the pain was like a distant memory, and I felt myself slipping away. A breathless second before oblivion, I could have sworn that I heard someone's ragged voice – oddly familiar, a dead memory – shouting for them to stop.
> 
> ...............
> 
> When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a great gaping expanse of stone over my head. Oh God – was I dead and buried? Was that it? I sat up, rubbing my head, trying to massage some of the pain away. I felt far too alive to be dead, and could only conclude that somehow I'd made it. I almost opened my mouth to call out a hello but then I remembered how that might possibly attract a horde of insulted rampaging centaurs.   
  
Instead, I forced myself to sit up. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. I held out my arms to look over them; they were bruised and bloodied. I peered down my shirt to examine the rest of my body. It was equally damaged, with several red welt-like wounds in the shape of hoof-prints. I pulled up my torn trousers and looked down at my leg, where I had definitely heard the bone crunch the night before, but apart from a large red mark and a mysterious strip of cloth wrapped round it (I was sure it had come from the trousers themselves) to cover a bleeding wound, it was fine.   
  
It was not exactly the damage I knew I had suffered. It should have been far worse. How had I escaped? How had I _healed_? I was certain that the centaurs had broken so many bones and crushed so many limbs—   
  
A shadow fell over me.   
  
"So. You're awake."   
  
A single centaur was standing before me. He was still young by their standards, with pale almost-white hair, familiar brilliant blue eyes, and an expression that wavered between worry and distaste. I choked, recognizing him; it was unmistakably—   
  
"Professor Firenze?"   
  
"Miss Brown," he answered flatly. "The stars did dictate that we would meet again. So I should not be surprised – even though I was, to see you behaving so foolishly at our council-ground." He raised an eyebrow. "You may drop the Professor."   
  
I was, of course, incredibly articulate. "What the hell are you doing _here_?"   
  
"Such thanks," he said, "for saving your life."   
  
"Thanks," I said incredulously, still trying to absorb it all. It felt as though I would my close my eyes and once again find myself broken and bent under the centaurs. "Would I – would I have died?"   
  
"Undoubtedly."   
  
"And the wounds?"   
  
"We centaurs," he said importantly, "are not without our own forms of magic."   
  
"Oh," I said in a very small voice, feeling very unreal. I took a moment to take in our surroundings. We weren't at the pretty council-ground any longer. We were on a rocky slab of land dense with trees. Surprisingly, I was sitting on my blanket and bedroll. Firenze must have brought them as well, but I was too embarrassed and confused to bring it up. "Thank you," I mumbled again.   
  
"I couldn't have let them kill you," he said simply.   
  
"They seemed pretty eager about it."   
  
"Most centaurs are." I looked up at him; the expression on his face was one of utter misery.   
  
I was struck with an abrupt bolt of clarity. He probably hated the bit of himself that had made him intervene. I noticed that his torso was not without its own bruises, and some of them looked particularly nasty and painful. "But – when you helped Headmaster Dumbledore all those years ago – the other centaurs in the Forbidden Forest kicked you out, didn't they?"   
  
He shot me a sharp glare. "How did you know about that?"   
  
"I asked around. I was interested." I flushed suddenly. "Not in _that_ way, not like – er, not like Parvati – but I wasn't lying when Padear was shouting at me, accusing me, all that. I do find centaurs very fascinating. Er – in the least offensive way possible, I don't think you're specimens or anything." I was choking on my words – though Firenze was surprisingly not angry – so I covered up with what I'd originally intended to ask. "But – doesn't you helping me mean that the Ateratra centaurs will be furious with you?"   
  
"That is not your concern."   
  
"Oh, I think it is," I said quickly. "I mean, you saved my life. I now can't help but be worried about what they'll do to you for this." I gulped, remembering a long-ago conversation with Rubeus Hagrid about how Firenze had nearly died himself at the hands and hooves of his brethren. And now he would be an outsider in yet another centaur clan, and it was my fault.   
  
"Miss Brown?" he prodded.   
  
My thoughts must have been obvious on my face. It was all very surreal. "I'm so sorry, Firenze."   
  
"You should never have come here, silly girl," he said brusquely, but his voice was not unsympathetic. "Sleep. I will return here later."   
  
With that, he was gone, but I could no more sleep than I could have got up and danced the tango with the way my body was aching. I lay back with my head against the hard stone and thought a million thoughts, from cursing Fran from the depths of my soul to wondering if Firenze was really angry with me.   
  
I must have been unconscious for several hours because it was already afternoon, and darkening into evening. The memory of the centaurs attacking me was quite terrible and visceral. I had always been interested in them, but Firenze had been the only one I'd ever seen up close, and he was quite the centaur deviant. I sighed, feeling bewildered, lucky to be alive, and still rather scared.   
  
I really need to work more on becoming a callous action hero.   
  
I searched through my pockets for my wand and found it there, mercifully unsnapped. I started a fire and hugged my arms around myself, waiting for Firenze to return. I wasn't certain that he _would_ return, but he did, late in the night, with an armful of food culled from the forest – berries, roots.   
  
"Here," he said gruffly, dropping it all in front of me.   
  
I was too hungry to say much. Firenze did not eat; he only watched me with cool, unreadable eyes, waiting for me to finish. When I was done (and, to think back on it, probably embarrassingly stained all over the face with berry-juice), I decided I had to get him to talk. "Where did you go today? Back to the centaurs?"   
  
He laughed; it was a hollow sound. "No."   
  
"Will you?"   
  
"I must," he said, and I realised he really didn't think he had a choice. Perhaps he didn't. "The heavens bind me to them. It is destined that I should go back."   
  
Now, I don't mean to be a hypocrite, since I like astrology and all, but that sounded rather stupid to me, so of course I tried to discourage him. "But won't they be horrible to you?"   
  
"This is not the first time, Miss Brown, that I have been forced to the outside for helping a human."   
  
"But the last time didn't end so well, Firenze." His name sat awkwardly on my tongue; I had to mentally force myself not to say _Professor_. Old habits die hard.   
  
"The Ateratra centaurs are wiser."   
  
"They didn't seem so," I said without thinking. "You could always find another herd! You did it once, you can do it again. I don't think the Ateratra centaurs are going to be all that happy when you go trotting back expecting to be forgiven for helping me."   
  
It was maybe too harsh. Firenze looked away from me and up at the sky. He was biting on his lower lip. No emotion was betrayed on his face, save for a thin glossy sheen over his eyes. I felt sick; it would be nearly impossible for him to turn back, and it was one hundred percent my fault.   
  
"How are your wounds, then?" he asked.   
  
"Aching but not entirely horrible."   
  
His mouth twitched. "Good to know. Are you prepared to tell me why, precisely, you are in this forest in the first place? It's far from any wizarding community. This is no place for humans."   
  
I rolled my eyes, relieved that he had changed the conversation. "I intend to ask for a big raise when I get out of here. I mean _big_."   
  
He shot me an are-you-nuts sort of look. "So, if I understand correctly, you were sent here for your work?"   
  
"Yeah. I wasn't lying about that, either. I really am an astronomy researcher. I'm only an apprentice now, but whenever my boss decides to retire, I reckon I'll be in charge." I had to stop myself – damn my rambling, of course centaurs don't care about silly human things like jobs. "Well, anyway, I _was_ trying to make star charts."   
  
"I told you when you were my student about the foolishness of humans following the stars."   
  
"Yeah, well, you weren't the most _nurturing_ teacher ever." I grinned, remembering how put off I'd been when he'd insulted Professor Trelawney – who, I know now, is a bit of a nutter, but still my very favourite teacher. "What with all the human-bashing."   
  
"A fair point," he admitted. "I am not skilled at relating with human adolescents; they are extremely confusing and overly emotional. I imagine that Headmaster Dumbledore appointed me solely to annoy the High Inquisitor. She had a rather infamous reputation – a great hater of non-human creatures, I hear."   
  
"She was a mad old bat, though. You can't judge us all by ones like that. And really, she did get her own brand of centaur treatment." I shivered. "Almost like I did."   
  
"She deserved it," he said quietly. "You did not."   
  
"I really don't think anyone deserves a good trampling."   
  
_Except for maybe Seamus Finnigan_, I added mentally.   
  
"Nor do I," he agreed, "but it is what my herd does."   
  
"So you just go along with it?"   
  
"There is no choice. I have already defied the stars too many times in my life – with you, with Professor Dumbledore." He gave a short laugh. "I imagine that I am a little strange."   
  
"In a non-murderous way. That can be nothing but good," I mumbled. "Do you miss the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, then?"   
  
He nodded. "Sometimes I wish that I do not, but the stars will always bind me to my herd, even if I am cast out of it." A sheepish look crossed his features, as though he'd said something he hadn't meant to. "Sleep, Miss Brown. I will see that you find your way out of the Forest in the morning."   
  
"Bind you to your herd? What do you mean by that?"   
  
Firenze turned to the stars once more. "Venus is coming close in its path."   
  
Something in his voice told me that this was centaur-speak for_ shut your mouth, Lavender_. For once in my life, I took the hint, rolled over – ignored a sharp jab of pain in my side – and promptly fell asleep.   
  
Weird, huh? I can never usually sleep at night. But I suppose I just felt – oddly at ease, with Firenze as a great blocky towering hulk over me, just standing and watching and probably thinking stupid cryptic thoughts about the stars.   
  
Really – if people think I'm a nutter for liking horoscopes, they really ought to have a chat with Firenze.   
  
Or it could just be that being stuck in an extremely creepy forest with a slightly depressive, slightly annoyed centaur put all my other problems out of my mind.   
  
Including Seamus Finnigan.   
  
Prat.


	2. Part Two

> ……………   
  
**Part Two**   
  
……………   
  
Firenze was still looming over me when I woke up, looking typically intimidating and impassive. I had to put my hand over my eyes to see him properly; otherwise, he just blended into the forest.   
  
"Don't you ever sleep?"   
  
"We centaurs do not require it as frequently as you humans do," he said simply, failing to keep a smidgen of arrogance out of his voice. Then he inclined his head backward, to indicate his body. "Come on, then. Climb on."   
  
"You want me to _sit_ on you? As in, clamber up on your _back_? I thought—"   
  
He was almost smirking at me. "You thought—"   
  
"Well, really, I thought centaurs were far too proud to act like ordinary horses."   
  
"How do you think I brought you here in the first place?"   
  
"I didn't think about it," I admitted. I felt suddenly embarrassed. I probably looked like a total fool, being dragged around unconscious on the back of a centaur. For one mad moment, I almost asked him if he had a saddle. I'm sure _that_ would have impressed him completely. To avoid any more idiocy, I simply walked up to him and swung myself up onto his back, with a little helpful boost from his hand.   
  
"Ready?" he asked, tossing my blanket and bedroll back to me.   
  
"I'm not hurting you, am I?" I asked.   
  
"I would throw you off in an instant if you were," he said, with a faint smile in his voice.   
  
"Did you just make a joke?" I demanded.   
  
"Never," he said blandly.   
  
The ride out of the Forest Ateratra was sort of nice. I attribute it mostly to my own elation at the fact that I was finally getting _out_ of the wretched place. It was a pretty location when I wasn't either lost in it or being trampled by centaurs in it; it was still dark, of course, but the tangled trees and overgrown plants had their own unique beauty when I was safe and clinging to Firenze. We passed one great creature that appeared at first to be a breathing mound of mottled earth. Then I realised what it really was. "Firenze!" I gasped as he sped past. "Was that a—?"   
  
"A dragon, yes. He's quite amiable with us. We once had a bit of a fight, but he's decided he doesn't like our arrows. Wise old beast."   
  
"Geez," I muttered, immediately thankful that I hadn't guilelessly wandered to where the dragon lived. Maybe a centaur-trampling and eventual rescue was lucky, all things considered.   
  
Yeah. I'm such a Mary Sunshine sometimes.   
  
Firenze himself was faster than I had expected. I was gripping him tightly about the waist, careful to avoid the spots where he was injured – I didn't want to hurt him or talk about that – with my things lodged between us. My hair was whipping behind me, caught up in the wind. It was a glorious feeling, like the sort of thing you read about in a story. Except I really am a sorry substitute for a riding princess. And, to be fair, Firenze was hardly a glittering white stallion.   
  
We came to a place where the trees began to thin out, and Firenze slowed to a trot. "Are we out?" I asked.   
  
"Almost."   
  
Not a minute later, we emerged from the Forest Ateratra. The brilliance of the sunlight was a shock; I almost went blind from the whiteness and warmth of it. "Wow," I said. "You really don't realise how dark that ruddy forest is until you get out. How do you stand it?"   
  
"Centaurs prefer the night," he said, halting completely so that I could climb off. I did so, careful not to kick him accidentally or anything. To my great surprise, I didn't.   
  
"Thanks for the ride," I said awkwardly.   
  
His expression was altogether solicitous; it reminded me of his brief stint as a teacher. "Are you able to return home from here?"   
  
"No problem, I can Apparate."   
  
He wrinkled his nose. It seemed a very un-Firenze-ish thing to do. "I have never liked how wizards appear and disappear like that. It is entirely disconcerting."   
  
"Yeah, well, you get used to it. Well, not _you_ – but – y'know – me."   
  
"Right." He was looking at me like I was nuts. I get that a lot.   
  
"And you?" I hated to ask, but I had to know. "What are you going to do?"   
  
"My herd will meet at the council-ground tonight to discuss the movements of the planets. I will return to them then, and make my case. They will decide my fate, along with the stars."   
  
"But – you can't go back to them!" I swallowed and asked another question I hadn't wanted to. "Won't – won't they kill you?"   
  
"They may," he said coolly. "I learned long ago, Miss Brown, that I cannot run from my people. And if they do kill me – well, there are punishments worse than death."   
  
I was desperate to keep him from turning back into the forest. "What's your case, then?" I asked quickly. "What are you going to say to them? You know – in your defense?"   
  
"I do not know."   
  
"God, Firenze!"   
  
"I appreciate your concern, Miss Brown," he said. His eyes had suddenly gone typically centaur-icy, and I missed the little spark of humour in them. "But this is not something to do with you. The affairs of centaurs are not important to you. I have returned you to the outside of this forest, and now you must go back to where you came from."   
  
"Uh-uh. I can't just _do_ that."   
  
"Why?" he demanded.   
  
"Because I'll wonder what happened to you. I know you believe that everything that happens is dictated by the planets and whatnot, but I –personally – am feeling more than a little guilty here!"   
  
His teeth were gritted. "Then what do you suggest?"   
  
"I'm going to stay here," I said firmly. "I'll camp under the stars and wait." It was a warm day, and the place where he had left me was bright and very un-scary, with zero percent chance of murderous centaurs. "I want you to come back and say good-bye, just so I know you're okay because otherwise I'll just worry about you."   
  
The anger had drained away; instead, he looked bemused, as though thinking, _Oh, Lavender, you batty sentimental human_. "Worry?"   
  
"Yes, _worry_! It's not such a foreign concept!" I said furiously. "You did save my life, after all – I think I've a right to be worried if your own gets snuffed out because of it."   
  
"Very well. It is acceptable. I will return, if your mind demands to be set at ease."   
  
"There," I said smugly. "Was that so difficult?"   
  
"See you in the evening, Miss Brown."   
  
"I hope," I murmured, but he didn't hear me. He had already melted back into the blackness of the forest. I clutched my blanket and bedroll and stood staring at where he had been, wondering what to do.   
  
My pack and tent had presumably been destroyed by the stampeding centaurs, so I had nothing to eat, and the rumble in my stomach was quite irritating and swishy. Still, I didn't want to Apparate home and come back; it would take a good half-hour to get all the way back – that's how far away I was. And I didn't want to leave in case Firenze came back early.   
  
I pulled out my wand and snorted at it. If only I'd taken that Kwikspell correspondence course in culinary magic my neighbour Sara had suggested! I could have conjured myself a snack.   
  
Instead, I laid the blanket and bedroll out on the ground and lay back with my arms tucked behind my head. The sky was clear and blue, but it grew dark just over Ateratra. "What a strange place," I whispered, once again grateful to be out of it. I was fully intending to give Fran a piece of my mind. I remembered the expensive telescope, and decided that I would be damned if I let her dock it from my salary.   
  
In truth, I was letting my mind ramble on and on to avoid thinking about Firenze. I loathe guilt, and it had settled like a heavy stone in my stomach, and I tried very hard to Not Think About It, which only meant that I knew it was there but I was covering it up with more frivolous things.   
  
The hours before he came back were long. What if they had killed him? There. There it was, the question I was suffocating. I couldn't imagine what I would do. I've never been too good with guilt. I wish I could be more evil or unfeeling or something. Lavender the Intrepid Slytherin. I like the sound of that. It became night again, and the Ateratra skyline blended into the ordinary one, and still Firenze did not return.   
  
By the time the quietest bit of night rolled around, I was positive that he was dead, and I turned over, pressed my face into the ground, and cried – my fist jammed into my mouth so nothing in the forest would hear me – until I was exhausted. I could not bring myself to leave, and every once in a while, when I thought about finally Apparating away, I told myself to wait another fifteen minutes, another half an hour. Slowly, endlessly, the night passed.   
  
When dawn was just rising, just as I was actually preparing to go, he came stumbling back to where I had camped. He careened around, not knowing how to walk, and then he saw me with shell-shocked eyes. He lurched forwards, almost as though he were drunk – I could not speak, I only gawked, my mouth wide open and disbelieving; the horror of it was too enormous – and fell at my feet.   
  
He was bleeding, brutalised, purpled – and _human_.   
  
I could scarcely believe my eyes.   
  
I don't know how, but I managed to contain myself. I dropped to my knees. "Firenze?" I whispered, shaking his shoulders. They were more darkened than flesh-coloured. "Firenze!"   
  
His eyes fluttered open, glossy blue and half-mad; they darted around for a moment before focusing on my face. "Miss Brown – I told you – that there were – punishments worse than death."   
  
And then he lost consciousness. I think I must have sat there and gaped for a good half-hour. Well, first I took the blanket from my bedroll and covered him with it; I'm not a voyeur or anything. Sheesh. Then I allowed myself some time to take it all in. I felt pretty guilty and very much like vomiting. It was my fault that he'd been thrown out of his herd. He had no obligation to save me.   
  
This whole thought pattern was really becoming like a mantra.   
  
I'd known that centaurs had powers – divination, healing, the textbook stuff. But to make him into a human, and permanently? That was a pretty impressive feat of transfiguration. The centaurs must have had powers that I didn't know about. Hell, I doubt anyone knows. Centaurs aren't exactly forthcoming with information about themselves.   
  
With a heavy heart, I sat there and watched the rise and fall of his chest, afraid that he would stop breathing if I looked away. I took the time to examine his face as I mopped it free of blood with the sleeve of my shirt. Parvati and I had been wrong in our school days; he was not fantastically handsome, only gently good-looking. Perhaps it had been the very exoticism of a centaur that had fascinated us, or the not-so-inconsequential fact that his naked torso had been ours to ogle every Divination class. His nose was perhaps a little too big for his face, and his mouth too long and too generous. His hair was floppy, fine, and messy.   
  
I reached out to move his uneven, choppy fringe from his eyes. "Oh, Firenze, you poor thing," I whispered. I did as much spellwork as I could to heal up his wounds, but I would probably be the worst Healer in the world, because it took me ages.   
  
When I was sure he would live, I began to think of ways I could get us out of there. Apparition was again useless, as I was fairly sure that Firenze didn't know how. We certainly couldn't walk our way out, and, from the way he had teetered on human feet, I could tell that they pained him. We would have to fly.   
  
I needed my broomstick. I Apparated home as quickly as I could without splinching myself, cracking and popping my way through half of England in less than fifteen minutes. I knew it was an unlikely fear, but I was afraid that the centaurs had followed him and would come charging out of the forest while I was gone.   
  
It was not the world's best broomstick. I don't particularly like travelling by broomstick, and I only play Quidditch if someone browbeats me into it – I don't like all that flying and sweating – and so I all I had was a dusty old Comet One-Eighty. Still, it had to do. Gripping it tightly, I followed the same Apparition trail back to where he lay, praying that he was still unconscious. For some reason, I didn't want him to wake up alone and grieving.   
  
He was exactly as I'd left him. Tossing the broom on the ground for a moment, I pointed my wand at his prone form. "_Mobilicorpus_," I chanted. His ghostly body rose up into the air; his bare, split-looking feet hovered slightly above the ground. I shuddered, then sat on the broomstick and grabbed him round the waist, holding on as tightly as I could with one arm, and steering the Comet with the other.   
  
We launched into the sky. It was still dim enough for us to fly without being Disillusioned. My hands shook the entire time; Firenze's lifeless head lolled back on my shoulder. I concentrated on listening to his laboured breathing; there was something very strangely comforting about its rhythm and consistency. I still couldn't believe it – how could the centaurs be so cruel, to turn one of their own into something they despised?   
  
I managed to land in my own garden with no one seeing me. It was still early in Godric's Hollow, and a Saturday to boot, so most of the town was asleep. The _Mobilicorpus_ spell carried Firenze along behind me as I unlocked my door and quickly darted inside. The first thing I could do was rub my eyes and gawk at the bizarreness of it all – having a transformed centaur floating ever-so-slightly in my front corridor. I hated the way his head rolled around his shoulder, like it didn't have any bones.   
  
Creepy.   
  
I took him to my bedroom, ended the spell, and tucked blankets around him. I found a draught on my dresser that was meant to ease pain, and so I uncorked it, tipped his mouth open, and poured it down his throat. His feet were cut and bleeding from his trek through the forest to me, and I found a basin to soak them in. Carefully, using a rag from the kitchen, I wiped them free of blood and tried to bandage the sores as best I could. There were a few thorns in there, and these I managed to pull out, figuring it would be better to do it while he was unconscious. Would there be a way to get him to St Mungo's without all the horrible questions that would accompany such a visit? Firenze obviously had no identification, nothing to point him out as a person, and nothing that could get him treated. There was nowhere we could go.   
  
I wished there was something more I could do. Helplessness is such a wretched feeling.   
  
I went into the lavatory, and only then did I realise what a fright I myself looked. There were brambles in my hair, scratches on my face, and bruises up and down my arms. The skin under my eyes was tired and puffy and darkened to a rather unattractive violet colour. I splashed some water on my face, pulled out some of the larger brambles, and used a clip to put my hair away from my face. It would have to do.   
  
I crept back into the bedroom, where Firenze was still out. My stomach was still rumbling, so I went to the kitchen, made myself tea and toast, and then went back in the bedroom to sit in my reading-chair so I would be there when Firenze woke up. For all my hunger, I could not eat without feeling queasy, so I merely sat there, drinking the tea without tasting it. Mr Peabody hopped into my lap, purring madly and starved for attention, but I barely noticed him.   
  
I could only watch Firenze, hoping there was some way I could make this mess right again. It was pretty much the worst situation I'd even gotten myself into – and that included the whole me-Parvati-Seamus fiasco. In fact, I _wished_ to be back in that ruddy mess, for all its different horrors, and that's pretty bad.   
  
Poor Firenze. Not only was he human, but he was stuck with one of the most insane people imaginable.   
  
……………   
  
I was there – half-asleep and weary, yes, but there – when he opened his eyes.   
  
He sat up bolt-straight, his expression wide and darting, as though he expected something to start attacking him. Then he moved his head swiftly and glared at me. "Where am I?" he demanded.   
  
I spoke cautiously. "My house. Godric's Hollow."   
  
"In the wizarding world?"   
  
"Of course."   
  
"Why did you bring me here?"   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry!" I said, feeling unfairly annoyed. "Was I supposed to let you die?"   
  
"Yes," he croaked, flopping back down onto the pillows. His eyes were squeezed shut, and it took me a long moment to realise that he was trying not to cry.   
  
"Firenze?"   
  
"Leave me, Miss Brown."   
  
His tone allowed for no resistance. Heavily, I stood up and went into my living room, where I simply plunked down on another chair and waited for him. I could hear his sobs – quiet at first, then rising. It's tricky business, when men cry. I never saw Seamus do it; he was the sort who was always way too macho to show his emotions. Even when the prat came crawling back to me, begging my forgiveness, he hadn't cried, and that, really, had been the clincher. Lavender Brown demands _crying_ and begging, not just simple begging.   
  
Firenze came out after a while, the blanket wrapped round him like a toga. His eyes were wet, but he had finished sobbing. He looked like a fallen god. I noticed that he clung to the doorframe as though it was sustaining his very life. "You can't walk, can you?" I asked softly.   
  
He closed his eyes. "No. Last night – it took me hours to get through the forest – I kept falling."   
  
Wordlessly, I stood up and took him by the arm, slowly guiding him like you would a blind person, determinedly not looking at how his feet slipped about or how he cringed whenever he ventured to take a step. I stole one short glance at his face; his jaw was set and determined, as though he were steeling himself for this invasion of his precious pride. It must have been so hard to suddenly have half the amount of legs you were accustomed to. His hands were raw from gripping the walls and doorframe – and probably the trees from the night before – so tightly.   
  
On the way, he tripped and knocked into a vase, which fell and shattered all over the rug. The sound was the most startling thing; both of us had been painfully quiet until then. "Miss Brown, I—" he began, his voice trembling.   
  
"It's okay, it was cheap anyway. And I got it on sale." I pulled him up and settled him on the chair opposite me. "Would you tell me what happened?" I asked.   
  
He looked me in the eye. "I received the appropriate punishment."   
  
"That's rubbish, Firenze, and you know it. They didn't have to do – do _this_ to you."   
  
"It was the decision of the council and of the heavens."   
  
"Do you truly believe that the heavens have dominion over every last bit of your life?"   
  
"I have learned the punishment one receives for defying the stars."   
  
"Like being turned into a human?"   
  
"Like being turned into a human," he agreed, in a scratchy sort of voice. He was studying his hands, turning them over and over again. I felt an insane urge to go over and hug him, but the fact that he probably hated me kind of stopped me from that.   
  
"You don't really want to die, do you?" I admit it, I was scared that I had a possible former-centaur suicide case on my hands, and I really wanted to avoid that entirely.   
  
"No. Else I would never have come to you." He was chewing on his lip, distressed. "I apologise – I must have seemed rather ungrateful, a few moments ago."   
  
"Don't worry about it. You're stressed." I was struggling for something else to say – preferably not another stupid understatement – when someone abruptly rapped on my front door. Both Firenze and I nearly jumped out of our chairs.   
  
"Lavender? Hallooo?" called a very thin voice from outside my front door.   
  
"Who's that?" Firenze looked around, alarmed.   
  
"It's just Sara Barnes, my neighbour – listen – could you, er, hide in the bedroom?" Before he could say anything, I turned my head to call, "Just a minute!" and awkwardly helped Firenze back into my room – he really couldn't walk, and had to lean his heavy frame mostly on me – where he sat on the bed, sad and obedient.   
  
"Halloo, Lavender?" came the voice from the door again.   
  
I swallowed a lump in my throat – the sight of Firenze was almost too much – and stalked over to the front door. Sara was standing on my front stoop, looking nosy and bright as usual. She was a small woman with springy black hair, probably a good six or seven years older than me, and she wore a perpetually interested expression, probably due to grossly overcharmed eyebrows.   
  
"You're back a day early," Sara said excitedly. Then she took a good look at me and her mouth dropped open. "My, Lavender, you look like you've been run ragged. That work trip must have been something else. I have this excellent potion for that darkness you've got under your eyes—"   
  
"What are you doing here?" I asked distractedly.   
  
She frowned. "I came to feed Mr Peabody, remember? We arranged it when you left two days ago."   
  
"Oh, right. I forgot. Well, I can do that now."   
  
I started to swing the door closed, but she stuck out her foot and caught it before I could. "Lavender!" she cried. "What's wrong with you – you look frightful, and you seem distracted – I'm coming in." She forced her way through the front door.   
  
Busybody.   
  
She stood in the middle of my living room and of course her little eagle-eyes spotted the shattered vase in an instant. "What happened?" she asked, leaning down to pick up one of the little blue shards.   
  
"You know me, Sara, I'm clumsy as anything – listen, I'm not feeling too well, could you maybe come back another—"   
  
But Sara was appraising me shrewdly. "You're hiding something."   
  
"I am not!"   
  
"Sure you are! Come on, out with it, now." A sudden, horrible thought hit her. "You're not potion-abusing, are you?"   
  
I was scandalised. "Sara!"   
  
"Then what is it?"   
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."   
  
"You are _such_ a bad liar." A devilish smile lit up her little face, and, before I could stop her, she darted to the bedroom door and flung it open. "A-ha – oh! Whoa!" she exclaimed.   
  
Did I say she was older than me? I only meant that _physically_. Whereas _mentally_, she was approximately sixteen years old.   
  
Firenze only looked at her blandly, confusedly, still wrapped in just the blanket. Then he shifted to give me a bewildered glance. I moved in front of Sara and slammed the door closed, barring it with my arms spread wide. "It's not what you're thinking," I said instantly.   
  
"Like hell it isn't," Sara said, delighted. "He's _gorgeous_, Lavender. You cunning little vixen! Where'd you pick him up? I mean, he looks like the cute-but-stupid sort, doesn't say much, but that's not always bad – work trip to the forest, indeed! Where did you go, really? Paris? Rome?"   
  
"Sara, _please_. I'll explain later."   
  
"Oh, don't be a spoilsport. Who is he?"   
  
"Nobody you know. Sara—"   
  
"Well, now I know why you look so exhausted – if I were you, I'd bring _him_ round that awful Seamus bloke, that'll fix the bastard right up—"   
  
"Out!" I hollered, pointing at the door.   
  
"I'm just saying is all—"   
  
"Out, Sara! OUT! Now!"   
  
"Okay, okay. Holy hell, Lavender."   
  
With an injured sniff, she left my house. I can't say I was too concerned about having hurt her feelings. I leaned my head against the front door, rubbing at my temples and wishing for the world's most effective headache potion. I also briefly debated the relative merits of becoming a hermit. No nosy next-door neighbours, no Seamus Finnigan and Parvati Patil, no human centaur in my bedroom giving my friends the wrong idea, and all the solitude I could take.   
  
It sounded pretty damn good.   
  
Just to have some breathing time to myself, I went to the kitchen and made up a tray of fruits and vegetables – slowly, as I probably unconsciously wanted to delay dealing with anything as much as possible. It's good to be avoidant.   
  
I almost put together a sandwich and then realised just in time that Firenze was not likely to appreciate animal meat lodged between two pieces of bread. Hey, at least I don't eat horse-meat. I think Mr Peabody might, though. You never know what's in those pasty cat foods.   
  
Carrying the tray, I went back into the bedroom, where Firenze was still waiting patiently. In fact, he was pretty much giving the wall a good old patented Zombie Stare. Anxious to avoid any more conversation about how depressive he was, I merely sat down next to him, putting the tray aside for a moment, careful to avoid touching him in case it startled him. "Sorry about that," he muttered.   
  
"Your friend?" he asked. I nodded to confirm it. "She seemed – needlessly exuberant."   
  
"Yeah, she's just going to be more damage control for later."   
  
"Damage control?"   
  
"Never mind." Through peripheral vision, I took him in, and realised he was still naked under that ridiculous blanket. Like I could have missed _that_. Suppressing a blush, I said, "We ought to dress you in some clothes." The embarrassment of that one sentence was well worth not having the risk of someone bursting into my house to find a mysterious man draped in a blanket.   
  
Honestly, fate really does have it in for me. Firenze may have been right about some of his star stuff because I sure seemed to have pissed off the entire solar system. Or else Jupiter and Mercury were up there getting liquored and having a great old laugh at my expense.   
  
Lousy scheming planets.   
  
"Dress me?" Firenze repeated, as though the prospect was unutterably horrible.   
  
"Yeah." I got up and started riffling through my closet before he could say anything else.   
  
There was an old over-robe of Seamus' in my closet, black, tattered but still serviceable, and since I could not bring myself to put trousers or pants on him (of which there were also some; why hadn't I tossed them out after Seamus himself?), it was ideal. Strictly speaking, it was the sort of thing you wore with other clothes underneath it, but I was not keen to increase the weirdness of the situation. "Lift up your arms."   
  
He did so, silently, and I pushed the robe over him and watched it pool into place. I arranged the cowl of it for a few moments, like a mother would. He sat stiffly and let me. "I'm sorry about this," I said quietly. "It's immodest."   
  
"I don't have the same sense of propriety that you do," he replied. "Humans are funny, with their shame; centaurs have no need of unnecessary garments."   
  
"I suppose not." But my cheeks were still burning with embarrassment. I felt so sorry for him! The way he looked at me, as though I somehow held all the plans and answers. He was like a very big, very stumbly child. And I wasn't feeling particularly grown-up and all-knowing.   
  
"But it isn't suitable – in a different way." His voice was hollow and disgusted. "Human clothing." He shook his head and stared down at his lap, smoothing out the folds of the over-robe and looking entirely repulsed.   
  
"Firenze?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"It's my fault you're in this mess." He opened his mouth, presumably to say some rubbish about stars and fate, but I held up my hand. "No, don't say anything. I am to blame, Firenze, but I promise that I'm going to do everything in my power to make it right. I'll read up on this day and night, I'll forego sleep, I'll cast all the magic I can. We will find some way to make you back into a regular old centaur."   
  
"What if it's impossible?"   
  
"It won't be." I wasn't at all sure of this, but I certainly didn't want to leave him utterly hopeless. I forced out a bright smile. "Hey, we'll have you clip-clopping and shooting arrows and stargazing back in the forest in no time!"   
  
He was ever-practical, but even I didn't miss the slight bit of light that had come back into his eyes. It felt a bit like a victory. "And while we look for a solution? It may take a long time."   
  
"Well," I said resignedly, "I guess you'll have to learn to be human."   
  
Neither of us looked too happy at the prospect.


	3. Part Three

> ……………   
  
**Part Three **  
  
……………   
  
Firenze and I began the next morning with the most necessary of things – my teaching him to walk correctly on two feet instead of four hooves. We stood in the middle of my living room, both of us white-faced and grim,with my hands grasping his forearms lightly and his legs shaking violently.   
  
"All right," I said. "Would you try and take a step without me helping you along?"   
  
"Hold on to my arms," he said shortly.   
  
Even though his voice was sharp and authoritative, I couldn't miss the tremor in it. "I will," I said, and squeezed his arm briefly through the thick fabric of the over-robe.   
  
Tentatively, he took a small step forward, and I took a small one backward, my hands still grazing his arms so he wouldn't tumble down, and we took a few more. I wanted to say a few words of encouragement but my mouth felt all cottony. Another step, and we were backing slowly into the kitchen; another step, and my feet brushed against the ceramic floor.   
  
"Good," I said under my breath.   
  
And then Firenze took one more step, caught his foot round in a twist, and unceremoniously fell down on the floor. I lost my grip on him and had to crouch down beside him. For a moment, he stared away, and then I almost reared back at the cool fury in his eyes when he lifted his head to look at me.   
  
"It's only one accident—" I began.   
  
"This is an indignity," he said freezingly. "I'll not subject myself to idiotic human practices."   
  
"Walking is hardly idiotic," I said, trying my best to remain calm and reassuring. Of course, that's like the sun trying to stay sub-zero. "And it was one mistake. You were doing fine. Come on, we'll try again."   
  
"I don't _want_ to be doing fine!"   
  
"There isn't much of a choice," I countered.   
  
"No. The stars decreed that I would suffer as a human, but not that I should have to learn to _live_ as one. Even that is too much for any centaur to bear. Death is preferable."   
  
"Then what do you want me to do? Abandon you back in Ateratra and let the vultures pick at you while you're unable to run away from them?"   
  
He was silent for a long moment. "No."   
  
"Then death _isn't_ preferable, is it?" I said, getting up and helping him along with me. I settled him on one of the kitchen chairs and sat myself across from him, my hands knotted on the table in front of me, as though we were associates having a meeting. "So it's bollocks to the stars, then." If anyone who knew me heard me saying that, they'd probably have died of laughter right there. "Any other suggestions?"   
  
"I am a coward."   
  
I blinked. "Pardon?"   
  
He sighed. "For not wanting to die. This—" he gestured inarticulately at his human body, "_existence_, flawed and ridiculous as it is, is still preferable to death, and that is cowardice."   
  
Great – so not only was I stuck with a centaur, I was stuck with a miserable, self-flagellating, guilty centaur. "Firenze – I won't hear any more of that rubbish. Not wanting to die is perfectly normal, for Merlin's sake, so stop talking about death. It's not exactly the most fun topic of conversation. You said yourself that reading fate is difficult – I remember from a long time ago – and the stars aren't exactly blinking _Die, Firenze_, are they?" I took a deep breath. "And another thing – I've been trying my best not to offend you. The _least_ you could do is stop insulting the entire human race at every possible opportunity."   
  
He looked at me, genuinely startled. "I apologise, Miss Brown. I did not consider your feelings."   
  
"Also, since you're not a professor any longer and since you're _living_ with me – you may as well call me Lavender. And we're going to have to agree to get along. That means you might have to swallow your pride a bit – but I know you're strong enough to do that." I extended my hand, and it hung limply and awkwardly for a moment before he reached out and grasped it. "Friends, of a sort?" I prodded.   
  
"Very well – Lavender," he said, testing it out. "Friends, of a very strange sort. And, to answer your earlier question, I have no suggestions. I was hoping that you might."   
  
How his eyes looked terrible and alone again! "I could _Mobilicorpus_ you."   
  
"Which means?"   
  
"Suspend you in the air a little and magic you around. I don't know if it'd work exactly, with you being conscious—"   
  
"No." It was fast becoming his favourite word.   
  
"Well, then, there are no other options. I can't exactly Spellotape two extra legs to you. We're just going to have to keep trying, and you're going to have to learn how to walk properly."   
  
"And you'll escort me every step until then?" he asked incredulously.   
  
"No – but perhaps—" I suddenly recalled a time several years ago when I had been shopping with Parvati in a bit of Muggle London. There had been a woman there, in one of the shops, with no legs – and instead she'd had this sort of chair with wheels that she'd pushed around. "Genius!" I cried.   
  
"Genius?"   
  
"Hang on, I need to write a letter."   
  
So I went and got a quill and some parchment and worked out a short note at the kitchen table, Firenze watching me from the other side.   
  
_Dean!   
  
How are you? I know I haven't written to you in a long time, but of course you're on Seamus' side in what I now refer to as The Incident. Friendship is a mess, isn't it? But never mind that – I've a question for you, since you're the Muggle-born I know best. You know those chairs Muggles use? The ones with wheels, for the people with leg problems? How would I go about getting one?   
  
Yours truly,  
Lavender Brown   
  
P.S. Don't ask why._   
  
My owl, Mrs Greenwich, was waiting on her perch. I whistled for her to come down and tied the short note to her leg. "Take it to Dean Thomas," I instructed, and Mrs Greenwich hooted with understanding. She really is a brilliant owl.   
  
Firenze was, of course, still at the kitchen table. "Well," I said, "that might be one problem solved – temporarily." He didn't push any further, probably out of fear that I would try to convince him to attempt some more walking. "I think you ought to take a rest," I said. "I need to go into London, anyway, to see what sort of research I can find about centaurs." I smiled at him; this time it didn't feel pasted-on. "We can't spend all our time on human lessons."   
  
"Mercifully," he said.   
  
I helped him move from the hard wooden kitchen chair to one of the more squashy comfortable chairs in front of my fireplace. Then I went over to my bookshelf and pulled out my very dusty copy of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One_. I figured he may as well start learning our magic. Then, pausing briefly, I also pulled out a Muggle book Seamus had loaned me and forgotten to take back, called _Treasure Island_. I vaguely recalled Seamus telling me that it was a great book for men, filled with adventures and fights and such. I had never read it – I always like a good Aphrodite Jones novel for myself. They have such lovely heroes. _Taming the Rogue Warlock_ is her best one, in my opinion.   
  
"Here," I said, unloading the books onto Firenze's lap. "I know it'll be boring, just sitting here and reading, but hopefully these'll be interesting enough to keep you entertained."   
  
"Will you be gone long?"   
  
"Hopefully not."   
  
……………   
  
At Flourish and Blotts I bought every book on centaurs I could find, which sounds foolish and excessive, but there were actually only three books on centaurs that weren't long boring histories. I suppose they aren't the most popular creatures to study. The wizard behind the counter gave me a very odd look when I went to buy the books; they had presumably been sitting in the shop for ages, which I figured out from the thick layer of dust on each of them. And they wouldn't even give me a discount for that!   
  
Or the wizard's befuddlement could have been that I was _still_ a revolting mess. In all the stress and excitement, I had forgotten to bathe and had carelessly gone off to Diagon Alley with hardly a thought for my appearance. I was dirty as anything – getting my crazy old lady practice in early, I suppose.   
  
So – because fate hates me – I had a nasty shock when I emerged from the shop. Sitting outside on one of the bright tables in front of Florean Fortescue's were Seamus and Parvati. I felt my stomach lurch and I tried to duck away, but Parvati spotted me a mile away and stood up and gave a long, exaggerated wave. "Lavender!" she cooed falsely. "Over here!"   
  
_I loathe you, I loathe you, I loathe you_ – "Oh, Parvati! I didn't see you there!" Feeling like a doomed Azkaban prisoner on her way to have her soul brutally sucked out by a horrible demon, I shuffled over to their table and pulled up a seat.   
  
"Lavender!" Parvati said. "You look so – _weary_."   
  
Seamus, to his very small credit, turned a bright red and stared down into his ice-cream sundae. Parvati, oblivious, was beaming widely, quite apparently excited at this opportunity to wave her good fortune and great looks and giant honking diamond ring at me. "I've been working hard," I said lamely.   
  
"Oh, really? What have you been doing?"   
  
For a moment I could sit there and stupidly look at her smile, of all things. It was like the sun – blinding and probably bad for your eyes, but it's hard to resist the urge to look directly at it. _Note to self: research teeth-whitening charms; sabotage Parvati somehow_. "Er – I'm still working with Fran – stargazing, drafting her research for her—"   
  
"And shopping," Parvati said. She dipped her hand into the Flourish and Blotts bag before I could do a thing. "Centaurs?" she asked, eyebrows raised as she skimmed over the book titles. "Interesting topic – does it have to do with your job?"   
  
"Er – yes. Fran Vega and I are interested in – er – their opinions on astronomy."   
  
"Astronomy?" she scoffed. "I'm interested in the centaurs themselves – do you remember Professor Firenze?"   
  
I was struck by a fit a violent coughing. "Vaguely," I managed weakly, still pounding my throat to get the coughs out. "I mean, it was a long time ago." Before she could say anything else, I choked out a goodbye, grabbed the bag, and fairly ran to the nearest Floo portal, with her cool, imperious eyes boring holes into my back. Seamus looked happy at my departure, for which I wanted to strangle him.   
  
I returned to find Firenze deeply immersed in _Treasure Island_. I plunked down the Flourish and Blotts bag. "Is it a good book?"   
  
He folded down a corner of the page and looked at me squarely, then held up the book. "Do all humans make journeys such as these?"   
  
"What? Oh – oh, no. It's not real, Firenze."   
  
"I beg your pardon?"   
  
"The story. It's not real. It's _fiction_. The person who wrote it made it all up."   
  
"I see," he said slowly, obviously disappointed. He glanced down at the closed book, and then back up at me. "Why would a human bother to write down a tale such as this if it is not true?"   
  
"To entertain people, I suppose. Do you like it?"   
  
"I was enjoying it mildly until now." He was scowling at the book; I almost felt sorry for the poor inanimate thing. "However, I am still compelled to find out how it concludes, even if it is not a history."   
  
"Good," I said, "because I really have to clean myself off. I went off to London today without even realising that I'm still horrid-looking from the – well, from – you know, the trip to the forest."   
  
He nodded curtly and picked up the book, opening it to where he had been, reading placidly as though I had never interrupted him. I watched him for a few seconds, fascinated by how restful he looked; it was the quietest and calmest I had ever seen him.   
  
A question suddenly occurred to me. "How did you learn to read?"   
  
"Centaurs are not without language."   
  
"Yes, but – you don't really have libraries or anything, do you?"   
  
"You forget, Lavender, that I have been exiled to the human world before. Although never in such a spectacular manner."   
  
He was right; that little fact did have a habit of slipping my mind. "So – it's not _all_ bad, is it? The human world? I mean, there aren't any good books in the middle of the forest."   
  
The look on his face was priceless and disbelieving. I figured it was my cue to exit.   
  
In the bath I allowed myself to relax and close my eyes. It was difficult to erase the image of Parvati and Seamus at Fortescue's from my memory, before she had spotted me; both of them had looked so nauseatingly _happy_, just sitting and having ice-cream, like a couple in one of those cheesy owl-post order Gladrags catalogues.   
  
And they would _so_ be Gladrags, too. Cheap, posh-imitation, and mass-marketed. Gloriously ordinary. I decided that I myself would be Sorciere de Mode, which is this terrific French robe-maker that you have to be supremely rich and famous to afford. _Great, Lavender. Likening yourself and Seamus and Parvati to shops as though shops have personalities. One more sign of impending madness._   
  
It wasn't the most soothing wash, but at least I was finally clean.   
  
I stepped out of the tub and cleared it ("_Evanesco_!"), then wrapped myself in my favourite robe, which is very lurid and very purple. Then, realising that Firenze was also dirty as a garden gnome, I filled the water up again and went out to get him.   
  
It was, predictably, another embarrassing affair. I showed him what to do with soap, how to work shampoo into hair. "Do you think you can – er – manage to get in and out on your own?" I asked. "All you really have to do is – er – pull the robe over your head and then scramble into the tub."   
  
"I can try," he said. He was observing the bath with an unreadable expression on his face. "It is no lake in the middle of the forest. And it is odd – how you humans wash alone."   
  
Tomatoes would have been envious of the colour of my face. "Er – right – the group bathing isn't really _in_ right now – I'll just leave you to it, then."   
  
The stars must have been feeling more magnanimous that day – or else they'd already had their fun with me at Fortescue's – because he managed to pull it off and didn't call me back in to help him until he had hoisted himself out of the tub, clinging to the towel rack, and dressed. I made us something to eat and the rest of the night passed in silence.   
  
……………   
  
Dean's response came late that evening, after Firenze had gone to sleep in my bed – one more unnerving arrangement in a long string of them. I had been placing blankets on my couch so that it would be comfortable for my own sleep when Mrs Greenwich came fluttering back in through the window.   
  
_Dear Lavender,   
  
I have to wonder if you haven't gone a bit mad – asking for a wheelchair! (That's what they're called, by the way). Since I can't ask what you're wanting it for, I'll just say that you must be leading a very bizarre life at present. You're not injured, are you? And wanting it for yourself?   
  
Anyway, you are in luck. My gran had to use one in her later years, before she died six years ago. She lived with my mum, and I'll wager that wheelchair is still stuck in all the stuff in our garden shed. If you like, you can Apparate here tomorrow and we'll go and dig it out together.   
  
Sincerely,  
Dean   
  
P.S. You shouldn't feel as though you can't be friends with me as long as I'm friends with Seamus. Sure, I'm still friends with him, but I do think he did treat you rather shabbily and I've told him so. We don't have to tell him anything._   
  
……………   
  
In the morning, I dressed to go to Dean's and was about to guide Firenze to his chair when he made a different request. "Could I go into your back garden?" He rubbed at his eyes; I noticed that he was looking pale and peaked. "I can hardly stand all of this indoor air."   
  
"Of course – why didn't you say anything?"   
  
He was solemn. "I thought perhaps you didn't want your loud neighbour to see me – but this building has become nearly intolerable."   
  
"Geez, and I thought it was cosy," I said good-naturedly, and guided him instead through the rear door. The back garden in my cottage is quite nice; there are high plants and flowers and Sara couldn't see into it unless she jumped up and tried to look straight over the fence.   
  
Which I actually wouldn't put past her.   
  
Firenze found himself a decent spot in the shade and I brought him _Treasure Island_ and a cup of tea, the latter of which he didn't particularly like but was growing accustomed to (and I won't get into our brief but strange conversation on the relative merits of tea-leaves as predictors of the future). He was mild and gentle in such an unfathomable way. Of course, he was proud and grieving, but he took most things in quiet stride, simply meditating and thinking. I wondered if all centaurs were that way when they weren't trying to kill people.   
  
Dean was looking well when I Apparated to his front door. He's the kind of wizard who likes to dress as a Muggle most of the time, and he was wearing a silly-looking football sweater and blue jeans. He was working as a curse-breaker and had the definite luxury of having plenty of time off work. Makes me think I ought to have concentrated more in school. "Well," he said, "I'm glad to see the wheelchair isn't for yourself, after all."   
  
"Er – no, it's not."   
  
He was smiling. "You're not going to tell me why you need it, are you? I suppose I'll just have to wheedle it out of you."   
  
"Oh, let's just go get the ruddy thing!"   
  
We Apparated to his mother's house. She was there, so we couldn't exactly go digging through the shed straight away. She was a nice woman, big and squarish and all smiles, and she tried to feed us approximately all of the food in her kitchen. She poked Dean in the stomach. "You're too skinny, my boy; you're not taking care of yourself," she said, and loaded him down with parcels of hilariously large care-packages. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.   
  
To me, she said, "Are you Dean's new girlfriend, then?"   
  
"No, I'm—"   
  
"She's Lavender Brown, Mum. Remember – Seamus' old girlfriend?"   
  
"Oh, right. Seamus never introduced us." Dean's mum grinned at me. "Well, you have to be better than that wretched new wife of his – Seamus brought her around for tea once and she just turned up her nose at everything and made some silly comments about how strange our house was, being non-magic and all. She seemed a little daft, too."   
  
I have to say that I instantly adored Dean's mum.   
  
The shed was a horrible mishmash of old broken Muggle things, just like Dean had promised. We talked as we went through it. "Do you know," I said, trying to sound offhanded, "I saw Seamus and Parvati in Diagon Alley yesterday."   
  
"Oh, no," Dean said sympathetically. "How did they look?"   
  
"Revoltingly happy."   
  
He laughed. "Disgusting, isn't it?"   
  
"Retch-worthy."   
  
It took us some time to find the wheelchair, and, by the time we had it dusted off and placed neatly on the grass, it was nearly noon. It was an old-looking thing, rusted over in places, but it seemed to move okay. I gave it a few test pushes round Dean's garden and gave a joyous laugh. "It's perfect!"   
  
Dean was watching me carefully. "_Now_ are you going to tell me what's happening? I'm starting to think you've gone Arthur Weasley on me."   
  
"Dean, really, it's complicated."   
  
"Complicated things have a way of working out better when there's a friend around to share in them," he said reasonably.   
  
I realised that he had a decent argument, and I did trust Dean not to go running off gossiping. He was always a good sort – a quiet, thoughtful, salt-of-the-earth type. And he _did_ take the time to help me with the chair, even not knowing why I wanted it. "Do you promise not to tell a soul?" I asked fiercely.   
  
"Yes – Lavender, what is it?"   
  
"Well, take hold of the chair," I said. "You'll see when we get to my house." Each of us took hold of one side of the wheelchair, careful not to drop it, and Apparated back to Godric's Hollow, my heart beating all the while. I suppose I shouldn't be telling this story if I'm not going to be completely honest, and, to be completely honest, I was dead scared that Dean or anyone else I told would think I was a complete horrible idiot for getting myself and Firenze into such a muddle.   
  
"Leave the chair here," I told Dean in the living room, and then he followed me into the back garden, where Firenze was still plodding slowly through the book.   
  
Dean froze and stared. I bet he never forgot how embarrassed he'd been, the first day when Firenze had been our professor, and he'd quite idiotically insulted the herd – I mean, everyone _knows_ how prideful centaurs are about themselves. "Lavender, is this—are you—"   
  
"Dean, Firenze. Firenze, Dean," I said wearily.   
  
I went to help Firenze up. "Mr Thomas," he said calmly. "I remember you."   
  
"But – but you're _human_!" Dean blurted out. I glared at him meaningfully. Apparently ten years hadn't been much a help in How to Speak to Centaurs Tactfully.   
  
"It's a long story, Dean," I said, giving him what I hoped was a passable keep-quiet-for-now look. "Firenze, Dean's brought something to help with your moving about."   
  
The three of us went back inside, Firenze and I clinging together and Dean looking altogether bewildered behind us. With my free hand I indicated the wheelchair. "Ta-da!"   
  
Firenze was baffled. "What is it?"   
  
"You're meant to sit in it," Dean supplied, "and then use your arms to propel yourself around. It's for Muggles – er, that is, non-magic people – who can't walk, as a sort of replacement for their legs."   
  
"I see." Firenze turned his head to look at me expectantly.   
  
I settled him into the chair; he lifted his arms so that they rested above the wheels. "Go on, then," I said. "Give it a try."   
  
He wheeled himself around a little, pushing on the tops of the wheels while his legs rested uselessly. I watched with grudging admiration – the things Muggles can come up with! Which was, of course, a very Arthur Weasley thought. Perhaps Dean was a little right.   
  
Firenze came round to where Dean and I were standing and gave a nearly imperceptible nod, but I could tell he was happier just from the slight changes on his face – fewer pinched stress-lines. "It is acceptable."   
  
"This doesn't mean there'll be no more walking lessons," I cautioned.   
  
The happy changes vanished. I had to stifle a laugh.   
  
Dean was still looking very thunderstruck. "Do you mind, Firenze," he said slowly, as though he were trying to wrap his head round everything, "if I borrow Lavender for a chat out in the garden? You could practise your wheeling a bit more."   
  
Firenze didn't mind. He was actually quite enthralled with the new contraption, running his long fingers over the rusty spokes of the wheels. I suppose it was a bit more like having a horse-body than just having two legs.   
  
As soon as the door closed behind us, Dean spun round and spoke as loudly as he dared, which was really just a loud whisper. "For the love of all that's good and holy, Lavender Brown, you've gotten yourself into a _mess_. Do you mind telling me exactly how you managed, at this moment, to have an old centaur professor of ours wheeling his human body round the chairs by your fireplace?"   
  
Well, it certainly sounded worse when he put it like _that_.   
  
I told him the whole story, beginning with Fran's batty research and ending with me bringing an injured Firenze back to my house. My voice only shook when I recounted my conversation with Padear and my almost-death. His mouth dropped further and further; by the end I almost feared he would tip over from the dragging weight of his chin.   
  
"Unbelievable," Dean said.   
  
"You're as great at understatement as I am," I said.   
  
"I've some old clothes he can have," Dean said, of all things. All the incredulement had not yet gone out of his eyes. "And – er – Lavender – perhaps I should help you a little with him."   
  
"How do you mean?"   
  
"Well, look at him! He's dressed in nothing but an over-robe and you have him pretty much housebound!"   
  
"What else was I supposed to do? He's not really that keen on parading in town, in case you couldn't guess! He _likes_ moping! And do you honestly think I want this out? I can see _The Quibbler_ headline now: _Centaur-turned-human living in Godric's Hollow, found with crazy witch destined to become mad old cat lady_."   
  
Dean's mouth worked a little, but he didn't laugh out loud. "You have a point, but you could still use my help. Don't you have to be at work this evening?"   
  
"Oh – bloody hell!"   
  
"See? And you can't just leave him here bored all the time."   
  
"He seems to like reading," I said defensively. "I can't _take_ him anywhere, really, Dean. If Dumbledore were alive, I could take him to Hogwarts, but I doubt the new people'll have such an open mind about these things."   
  
"Yes, I know," Dean said heavily. "Most wizards aren't too happy about centaurs – ever since what happened in the war. And vice versa. You really are lucky Firenze was there, or else you'd be dead by now."   
  
"I know," I said emphatically. "A million times, I know. But – but people won't understand that it's _Firenze_, you know. They'll just hear the story and think, oh, another brutal centaur, come to arrow us to death."   
  
"But that doesn't mean I can't give you a hand, Lavender. This seems a terrible thing to have to do alone, and _I_ know it's Firenze and he's not likely to arrow me to death. Besides – you're a girl."   
  
"Meaning?"   
  
"Meaning you probably don't want to explain to Firenze the finer details of being a human man." He smiled. "Nor do I think you'll want to show him how to dress properly."   
  
Oh, _geez_. He was completely and utterly right. I wanted to launch myself at him and give him a great big hug for being so incredibly nice and smart and terrific. "Do you know what, Dean?"   
  
"What?"   
  
"You are the loveliest friend in the whole world."


	4. Part Four

> ……………   
  
**Part Four**   
  
……………   
  
Professor Vega's eyes were shining when I walked into our disarrayed office; she could hardly wait for the results of my trip. For my part, I'd completely forgotten that I was supposed to come strolling in with stacks of brilliant Ateratra star-charts. "How did it go?"   
  
I took a deep breath. _All right, Lavender. Do not lose your temper. You are a cool and rational woman_. "Oh, apart from getting lost, having to muck around in the dirt for hours, not finding anything of use, and getting nearly killed by a _horde of murderous centaurs_ – perfectly fine."   
  
I thought it politic to leave out the fact that one of the not-so-murderous centaurs was currently taking up residence in my little house.   
  
Fran was looking predictably horrified. "Lavender! What?"   
  
"You heard me – I swear, Fran, I don't ever want to do anything but tedious paperwork and even more tedious chronicling ever again. I'd rather die of boredom than injuries sustained during trampling."   
  
"Oh, my dear." She got up and gave me a tight, choking hug. That's the wretched thing about working for batty old ladies; it's hard to rip into them because they're usually very nice and really they can't help being daffy. I bet I'll be completely senile by the time I hit fifty, walking around in my knickers and asking what time supper is at breakfast. "Why in the world didn't you Disillusion yourself before going into the forest?"   
  
If she hadn't been hugging me I would have smacked my own forehead. I swear, I would have been better off as a Squib. "Fran," I said seriously, "I completely lack common sense."   
  
"So do I, for sending you out there." She let me go – I took a huge gasping breath – and gave me a great grandmotherly smile. "How about I give you some incomplete star charts for this week and the next? All you'll have to do is fill them in. It doesn't matter from where, you can do them in your own garden if you like. It'll be a real holiday."   
  
I don't know if she was truly feeling nice and remorseful or if she just wanted to keep me from quitting or having a fit or reporting to the Ministry's labour people, but it worked – a couple of weeks off was just what I wanted.   
  
I spent the evening at my desk while Fran took over the outside telescope. Luckily enough, I still had the books on centaurs stuffed into my bag, so I pulled them out and began to read though, making sure that Fran didn't see. It wouldn't do to have to explain a sudden interest in centaurs after a near-death experience with them.   
  
They turned out to be relatively useless. The first one, called _The Mysteries of the Centaur_, was just that – a list of mysteries. Can centaurs really practice Divination? Do centaurs have powers different from those of wizards? "I need answers, not questions, silly book," I said angrily, and put it down. But the other two were more of the same – vague guesswork and information culled from school textbooks. And I already knew that centaurs were proud and regal creatures. Any school-child does, _Geez. You'd think someone could write a decent book about them._   
  
……………   
  
Dean was still there when I came tumbling out of my fireplace and back into my living room, but he had fallen asleep on one of the chairs. He was snoring lightly, with one hand dangling close to the floor. For a moment I very devilishly considered shouting him awake, but then I recalled how bloody nice he'd been and let him stay asleep.   
  
"Firenze?" I called.   
  
"Outside," he replied.   
  
I followed his voice to my back garden and noted with surprise that Dean had installed a long piece of board from the door to the little stone laneway so that Firenze could easily wheel his way out. Firenze himself was watching the sun rising, a closed book resting on his lap. Obviously Dean had kept his word – Firenze was dressed in a pair of Muggle trousers and a black jumper. In the ordinary clothes, he looked less human – he was like something otherworldly in a costume, with a face that didn't quite fit the body. "Did you have a good night?" I asked.   
  
"Mr Thomas is very helpful."   
  
"And how are you feeling?"   
  
He considered the question. "Better."   
  
And that's a good way to describe how that first week went – progressively better. Luckily, Firenze became an avid reader of both Muggle and wizarding novels, and I didn't have to worry much about him being bored while I spent the evenings with my astronomy. I let him pick and choose from my bookshelf, and Dean brought him several more Muggle novels similar to _Treasure Island_. Dean himself popped in and out whenever he cared to, bringing clothes and books and cheerful comments, and I managed to head off Sara whenever she came nosing around. She was so aching to know what was going on and it was killing her. I can't say that I wasn't a little satisfied over that.   
  
The walking lessons were improving steadily. We only did them for half an hour every day because they frustrated him so, and more often than not I had to keep my hands lightly on his as we took baby-steps through my living room, but he was getting better, and it was gratifying to see. I was afraid that Firenze would get too attached to the wheelchair when he didn't really need it.   
  
The only thing that nagged at me tremendously – apart from my usual mental breakdowns regarding Seamus, Parvati, and eventual wretched spinsterhood – was the fact that I had no clue how to make good on my promise to correct the centaurs' curse. Books were useless – no wizards had ever dared to collect enough information about centaurs. My own magical knowledge was far too limited for something as huge as Firenze's transformation, and I couldn't precisely ask around because then they'd know I was harbouring a centaur in my house. If only Dumbledore were still alive – that man was like the magic solution to everything.   
  
Friday came around, peaceably enough – making it one week since I'd dragged Firenze, unconscious and bleeding, into my house.   
  
And to think that other people have ordinary milestones.   
  
……………   
  
On Friday morning – okay, it was more like Friday afternoon – I rolled off of my makeshift sofa-bed to find Firenze reading _The Love Potion_ Disaster, which is an Aphrodite Jones. It's actually very good; it's about these two witches who are in love with two brothers, so they concoct a potion to make the wizards fall for them, only the wizards each fall for the wrong woman and they have to figure out how to set everything right and of course they end up not needing the potion after all because the wizards turn out to have liked the witches all along.   
  
Really, Aphrodite Jones is brilliant to come up with this stuff.   
  
Firenze saw me sit up and indicated the book. "Why are your shelves stocked with such rubbish?"   
  
_Oh_, I thought, _he did not just insult my Aphrodite_. "Excuse me?"   
  
"This is terrible – Dean's books are so much better. The language is poor and the story is confusing and only based around a ridiculous misunderstanding."   
  
"Ah," I said sleepily, "but why are you reading it, then? There are plenty of Dean's books left lying around."   
  
"I need to learn more about how humans interact with one another socially," he muttered.   
  
"Perhaps that's not the best resource. Men like the ones in those books simply do not exist."   
  
"How so?"   
  
"Oh, you know, ones that aren't self-absorbed, neurotic, philandering, co-dependent prats who think chivalry is one of the seven hundred Quidditch fouls."   
  
"I see." He went back to reading and I had to laugh at the screwed-up look of concentration on his face. Aphrodite Jones isn't an author you read with careful consideration; she's one you read in the tub with a bar of Honeydukes. "Are all human females as frivolously absorbed in finding a mate as the ones in this novel?"   
  
I got up and started to fold my blankets. "Not me," I yawned. "I've sworn off men forever. No good, the whole lot of them."   
  
"What's this, then?" Firenze asked.   
  
"What's what?" I turned around and saw that he was holding the picture that I keep on one of my side tables. I don't know why I haven't shredded the damn thing. It's one of me and Seamus, at our Leaving Feast years ago, both of us giggling madly and waving like a pair of goons. "Oh," I said dully. "That's something I keep forgetting to smash into little bits." And then smash the little bits, and then smash the smashed little bits, and so on and so on and no, I'm not obsessive at _all_.   
  
He raised an eyebrow.   
  
I sighed. "He and I were supposed to be married. Then he decided he didn't want to marry _me_." This all came out very quick because I was afraid I would choke up on all the words; as it happened, I managed to say it all with only a little tremor.   
  
Firenze nodded. "Did your family attack him for breaking his contract?"   
  
Of all the responses he could have made, that was one I had certainly not expected. "_What_?"   
  
Firenze shrugged – again, an oddly human gesture on a not-quite-human figure. "It is what happens in centaur herds when male promised to a female decides to disobey the will of the heavens."   
  
I sat down. Now this was the sort of fascinating thing you couldn't find in books. "Centaurs have _arranged marriages_? I've never seen a female centaur!"   
  
"We read the stars to decide which two are destined to be together, and – as I have learned time and again – it is unforgivable to defy what we read to be true," he said reasonably. "The female centaurs have their own council-ground, and have their own affairs to discuss, and you never saw any in the Forbidden Forest because Hagrid asked them to stay deep within the trees." He coughed. "You see, the male students would venture into the forest to gaze at them, and Hagrid was always having to rescue them. It was very troublesome."   
  
"Oh!" I laughed. It was the sort of thing Hogwarts boys _would_ do – sneaking into the Forbidden Forest to ogle the female centaurs. "Do _you_ have an arranged marriage?"   
  
"No. There are very few fathers who would accept me into their families. I have always been considered slightly insane. Even when I was a foal, the stars failed to hold me in good graces."   
  
I leaned back in my chair and smiled, thinking of Seamus and Parvati. "I know _exactly_ what you mean."   
  
……………   
  
Later that day, an owl came from Dean._   
  
Dear Lavender,   
  
I had a thought – you and Firenze should come to my mum's for lunch tomorrow. She won't give two figs about Firenze; she doesn't even know that centaurs exist, let alone know that the whole wizarding world has this huge prejudice against them. And Mum makes a really good vegetable pasta. She says to tell you that you seem very nice but look like you could use a home-cooked meal, which is her usual line on me, but it can never hurt to take a break from Culinarius Insta-Spell Suppers once in a while, can't it?   
  
Hope you're doing well,   
  
Dean   
  
_To my surprise, Firenze thought it was an excellent idea once I told him that Dean's mum lived in a big neighbourhood filled only with Muggles and that he would probably be able to spend the whole time outside breathing in fresh air. So I sent Mrs Greenwich back with an affirmative reply.   
  
After supper, when it was dark enough, I grabbed a sheaf of Fran's star-charts. "I'm going to sit outside and work for a spell."   
  
"May I come with you?" Firenze asked. He was still reading _The Love Potion Disaster_, despite several derisive snorts and comments on its foolishness.   
  
"If you promise not to make fun of my silly human pursuits."   
  
"Of course," he answered with a smile. So he wheeled himself out there, and I lay stomach-down on the back porch with my charts spread around me and my elbows propping me up, occasionally rolling over to gaze at the sky and check to see if I'd missed anything.   
  
For a little while we were silent, both of enjoying the cool summer night and the fresh air, and only the movement of my quill over the parchment maps broke the silence. It was pitch-black, but the glow from my parchment kept it so I could see the outlines of trees and fences and things. Astronomers' parchment is really very neat as it glows a little in darkness so we can still see it – too much light is bad for the night sky.   
  
Firenze shifted in the wheelchair. "What are you mapping?"   
  
"Right now, Sagittarius." I scratched out a star I had mislabelled. "You ought to be amused by the story behind Sagittarius, Firenze. We say it's the representation of the centaur Chiron."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Yeah. I suppose it doesn't really look like a centaur, but Chiron was supposed to be this great and kind centaur who taught the ancients all about the natural world and healing and such. And Chiron was accidentally wounded by a human, only centaurs are immortal in this story, so Chiron couldn't die but no one could heal the wound. So Chiron, since he was suffering from this incurable wound anyway, decided to be good and noble and took the place of Prometheus."   
  
In case it's escaped your attention until now, I am far from a master storyteller.   
  
Firenze snorted. "And who is Prometheus?"   
  
"Oh, Prometheus decided to give mankind the gift of fire, only that made all the other gods furious, so the other gods chained Prometheus to a rock in the underworld, where every day birds would pick out his innards and then they would grow back and the birds would get right back on him every day."   
  
"And this Chiron willingly took his place?" Firenze asked, bemused.   
  
"As the story goes, yes." I finished the chart of Sagittarius and rolled it up, then began a new one of Perseus.   
  
"That is—"   
  
"Ridiculous nonsense, I know."   
  
"I was going to say it was _interesting_," Firenze said. "Centaurs do not have the need to create tales that never happened, complicated pictures from things as simple as stars, and the human need to do so is entirely strange. And," he added with a small smile, "if this Chiron did exist, he would have been banished by his herd in an instant."   
  
"It might be true. He could be just like you, a bit of a centaur misfit. Hey, there's even a connection – you both taught things to humans, although Chiron's humans were probably more receptive than Hogwarts students."   
  
"His teachings were likely of more use; I found that very few students understood how I look at Divination." Firenze gazed back up at Sagittarius. "To us, that grouping of stars tells of the coming weather. The brighter it burns, the hotter the next day will be, and often we cannot see it at all."   
  
It made sense, as Sagittarius is hardly visible outside of summer. "That is far more practical and far less interesting."   
  
"Humans truly do have an odd notion of what centaurs are."   
  
"The Chiron story is mostly a Muggle idea. They think you lot are ageless and peaceable and all that – that you go around weaving flowers into wreaths and communing with Mother Nature. You'll see that wizards have a different view of these things nowadays."   
  
"Yes, I know," Firenze said darkly. "I wish it could have been otherwise. I have always spoken quite forcefully about making peace with all humans. Once – in my Forbidden Forest herd – I suggested using the Centaur Liaison Office at the Ministry."   
  
"I bet that went over real well."   
  
"I took a kick in the stomach for it."   
  
"Ouch."   
  
"Indeed," he said wryly.   
  
"During the war, Firenze – why _did_ the centaurs side with Voldemort?" Even though he'd been dead for more than half a decade, I still got a terrible little chill whenever I said the name. Everyone did, of course, but when you get used to doing something one way it's extremely hard to learn to do it another way. "I mean, he might have looked all twisted and gross, but he was human as well. Why trust him?"   
  
"It was not my decision."   
  
"Of course it wasn't – you were still exiled at Hogwarts and confusing us with your vague statements." I grinned. "But you must have some idea of why they did it. They're meant to want to stay away from humans entirely, not meddle in wars." For some reason, I very much wanted to know – perhaps because no one else in the world did.   
  
"I imagine," Firenze said slowly, "that Voldemort offered them things they could scarcely dream of. He whispered beautiful promises into the ears of many, and, like humans, centaurs are not infallible. We can fall prey to greed and anger, and we can read the stars wrong because our minds want them to tell us certain things. The night sky can be obscured by ambition and evil. Humans will see what they wish to see – and, at times, so will centaurs. I imagine it would take a great deal of will to turn down vows of fame and glory and victory, and I imagine that the centaurs who decided to go to war saw a prideful, beautiful future."   
  
"But what about the fighting? The general perception of centaurs before the war was that they just wanted to be left alone to be proud and imperious and whatever else they are."   
  
"There are some centaurs who enjoy the brutalities of war. The archers see attacking humans as sport."   
  
"How terrible."   
  
"I have encountered some humans who think the hunting of centaurs is a game. There have been many centaurs who have ended up stuffed and displayed in the houses of rich wizards."   
  
"Yes, well, they're terrible also," I said, anxious to steer the conversation away from violent centaur-stuffing. "So you're not an archer?"   
  
"Only our best warriors are. I'm still far too young." He smiled wanly. "And, perhaps, too impetuous and unconventional."   
  
I was curious. "How old_ are_ you?"   
  
"Forty-seven, next full moon."   
  
"You're kidding."   
  
"Not at all. An ordinary centaur lives for four hundred years or so. Padear – the leader of the Ateratra herd – was four hundred and twelve a short while ago."   
  
"And he didn't look a day over three-fifty," I said dryly. Then I glanced down at my charts. "Would you look at me! I'm not getting any work done at all." I sighed and began to gather up my things. "There are just some days when, no matter what, I can't get a thing done."   
  
"That would explain your persistent lateness in handing in essays when you were my student."   
  
"Very funny." I rose and dusted myself off. "Up for another walking lesson?"   
  
"I have come to understand that such a question really gives me no choice," he said, but he willingly wheeled himself back into the house. We took our usual positions in the living room and I half-lifted him from the chair. His legs were getting stronger and he could hoist himself in and out; he could also take a few steps without me and without having to fall all over walls and furniture.   
  
We started moving. "Were my essays really that terrible?"   
  
"No, but the pink parchment was slightly hard on my eyes." He smiled at the memory. "Although it was never as offensive as Miss Patil's perfumed assignments."   
  
"She had such a fierce crush on you."   
  
"Did she?" He looked surprised. "Silly girl."   
  
"That's an understatement." Ah, Parvati-bashing. Some people have things like knitting and Quidditch as hobbies, and I guess my own personal favourite pastimes just happen to be more bitter. I don't see anything wrong with that.   
  
Heh.   
  
"You were actually one of my better students, given that you were one of the few who believed in what Professor Trelawney had to say," Firenze noted.   
  
"Well, she turned out to be crazy, but she did make one of the most important prophecies ever, so I can't have been completely remiss."   
  
"Indeed not." I noticed that he was hardly paying attention to his feet. Slyly, I slid my hands away from his, so that only the ends of our fingers were touching. "Most human Seers are like that – they only See in sudden fits of clairvoyance."   
  
I rolled my eyes. "And centaurs See better?"   
  
"We do not See. We interpret what everyone can look at."   
  
"Well," I said, breaking into a smile and nodding down at our hands, "look down and interpret that."   
  
He did, and realised in a second that he had just walked ten steps on his own without even noticing. His eyes flew to meet mine; they were a mixture of shock, joy, and apprehension.   
  
"I think that's enough of a lesson for today, don't you?" I asked, stepping back. I hoped he wouldn't be upset – in a way, every time he grew closer to acting like a proper person, he drifted further from what he truly was.   
  
Firenze was wobbly without me, but he managed to remain standing. "I don't know, Lavender, if I am happy or not," he said solemnly. "If I am successful in these human endeavours—"   
  
"It doesn't make you less of a centaur—"   
  
"And I believe I'm correct in assuming that you've had little luck finding a solution."   
  
"It's not easy."   
  
"I know," he said quietly. "I do not mean to insult you. I know you try, and I know I am an imposition. And I know that I am not going to become human in my mind even if I have become human in my body, yet I fear that eventually I will _want_ to be human."   
  
He looked so desperate standing there. I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed briefly, trying to ignore it when he flinched. "Firenze," I said sincerely, "if you ever _want_ to be human, just come and get and me, and I will tell you all the things that are wretched about it. I mean, centaurs don't have to have jobs or go to school or pay fines for magical mishaps or worry about having their house-bills paid on time."   
  
He shook his head and laughed and I couldn't help but note that it was a very un-Firenze thing to do. Perhaps I was rubbing off on him too much. Then he swayed forward and I had to reach out to steady him. _Lavender, note to self: act more like a centaur. Also, figure out how to act more like a centaur. Actually, scratch that – just find a way to get Firenze back to normal. Also, stop making notes to self. It's abnormal._   
  
He settled back into the wheelchair and went back to sleep. For a long while, I sat in my armchair and gazed moodily at the closed door of my bedroom. There was a sneaking feeling coming over me then, though, left over from the amiability of our conversation under the stars and the success of the walking lesson, and coloured my own self-denied loneliness – I was growing to like having him around.   
  
_Oh, hell, Lavender. You just have to complicate everything.   
  
_……………   
  
We took my old Comet to Dean's mum's house, where she had a spread already all laid out – salad and pasta and ice-cream. Dean Apparated to my house for the wheelchair and the four us of crowded round a checked table in her garden, which I thought was bright and lovely.   
  
"Thank you for inviting us, Mrs Thomas," I said politely.   
  
"We're not at the Prime Minister's tea party," she said laughingly. "You can both call me Augusta."   
  
"Right then, Augusta." I was ravenous and probably ate very disgracefully, but, then again, a voracious appetite is the best compliment one can give to a chef. "In my house," I said through a mouthful of coleslaw, "we never had much a big family do for mealtime. Everyone was always going in and out. My dad's an Obliviator so he's always on call."   
  
"What's an Obliviator?" Augusta asked.   
  
"Someone that erases memories, Mum," Dean said quickly. "It's not harmful at all and it's strictly regulated; we use it for when Muggles know too much."   
  
"Oh," she said keenly. "Have I ever been Obliviated?"   
  
"Well, no, you wouldn't have to, you already know about wizards – but remember when I was eighteen and always flying low in the garden? The Sullivans next door had to be Obliviated once because they saw me."   
  
I laughed. "I remember that! You got the worst fine."   
  
"Shush, shush," Augusta said, mockingly covering her ears. "I'm the sort of mother who just likes to wear her blinders and pretend her son is perfect. I'll not hear any more of these indiscretions." She turned to Firenze. "Dean tells me you're called Firenze."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"That's an unusual name."   
  
"He's a centaur, Mum," Dean said. "Well, formerly."   
  
"A centaur?" Augusta asked. She seemed entirely calm about the whole thing, but I supposed she had grown used to oddities, what with having a wizard for a son. "Like – a horse body and hooves and all?"   
  
"Yes," Firenze said.   
  
"How did you _eat_?"   
  
Dean and I exchanged a glance – it was such an odd thing to ask that I was surprised it hadn't been me who'd blurted it out.   
  
Firenze was confused. "I beg your pardon?"   
  
"I mean, where would your stomach be? In the man part, or the horse part?"   
  
"Mum!" Dean admonished.   
  
I smothered a laugh.   
  
Firenze seemed to think the question was entirely normal. "I had two stomachs," he said, matter-of-fact. "One in the horse part and one in the man part. The horse stomach digests coarser foods, like what ordinary horses enjoy eating."   
  
"So you would get a craving for a lot of hay once in a while?"   
  
"Something like that, yes."   
  
"Remarkable," Augusta said, shaking her head. "I bet the man stomach hated that."   
  
Dean still looked stricken at his mother's audacity, but I was smiling and Firenze looked oddly amused. Muggles really were gentler when it came to things like these; they didn't hate centaurs for picking the wrong side in a war because they simply didn't know any better.   
  
Then it dawned on me – while it wasn't safe to have Firenze out in the wizarding world, it was perfectly fine to let him loose on the _Muggle_ world. To Muggles, he would only look like someone exotic, like a foreigner, and they would never suspect him of being a centaur. Once again, I was flabbergasted by my own brilliance. "Firenze, Dean," I said happily, "you'd both better get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we're going to London!"   
  
They both looked bewildered. But really, the timing couldn't have been better. I _really_ needed some new shoes, and Muggles really do make some nice ones. They have excellent craftsmanship, some of them – and they don't even have magic! I decided it would be prudent, though, not to mention shoe-shopping to Dean and Firenze. Men simply don't appreciate the beauty of a finely-crafted heel.   
  
Philistines, the whole lot of them.


	5. Part Five

> **Note:** I apologize wholeheartedly for missing a week; I went on holiday and forgot to update before I left. Thanks to all who have reviewed so far; I'm glad to see that this story has managed to find itself an audience. I'm also happy that most of you seem to like Lavender – really, if she weren't the narrator, this would just be a terrible angst-fest.   
  
……………   
  
**Part Five**   
  
……………   
  
"She's taking _ages_."   
  
"Do human women enjoy making men wait?"   
  
"You know, Firenze, I really think they do."   
  
"How peculiar."   
  
"They all think they have to put a new face on before they go anywhere."   
  
I slammed my hairbrush down on my dresser. Really, the two of them – how rude and presumptuous! As though I need a new face! "I can _hear_ you two!" I shouted from my bedroom.   
  
"Oh, I know, Lavender," Dean's voice came drifting back. "I thought we might encourage you to get a move on. We're_ dying_ out here. Hey, I think it's night-time already!"   
  
"It is not!"   
  
Seriously, how in the world can anyone perform a proper eyelash-curling charm with a peanut gallery making snide comments every two seconds? Just because men are perfectly willing to go gallivanting round London looking like they've just rolled out of bed and forgotten to dress doesn't mean I am. I'd prefer if people didn't recoil in horror on passing me in the street, thank you very much.   
  
I pinned back my hair and threw a flowered Muggle dress over my head as quickly as I could. I really love Muggle clothes. They're so smart-looking, plus Muggles aren't as stuffy as wizards about things like short skirts and heeled shoes. Not that I'm cheap and obvious enough to go overboard with those things, but it is nice to have a tarty option once in a while. Dean gave a great exaggerated sigh when I finally emerged from my room. "At last," he said. "I thought you might have keeled over."   
  
I smiled sweetly. "Shut up, Dean. Did you remember your broomstick?"   
  
"Broomstick?" he echoed. "Lavender, you really _are_ daft. We can't fly to London. We're not going to Diagon Alley. We're supposed to be Muggles."   
  
"So how are we getting there?" I asked.   
  
"Driving."   
  
"_Driving_?" This, you must understand, was sort of like him saying we were going to ride on purple dragons.   
  
"Yes, driving." He was impatient.   
  
"You've _never_ brought a car to Godric's Hollow." I had a sudden, terrifying vision of Sara Barnes seeing a huge garish car parked in front of my house and proceeding to tell the entire town.   
  
"No, but the fireplace at my mother's is connected to the Floo – it's technically a wizarding household and I decided not to let the Ministry in on the fact that I no longer live there – and the car is there."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Did you at least remember to get Muggle money?"   
  
"Yes!"   
  
"Will you remember not to call it Muggle money when you're around other people?"   
  
"Come _on_, Dean."   
  
"Excuse me, you two," Firenze said quietly, "but I truly am aging."   
  
"Okay, Dean's mocking me and Firenze is making jokes," I said, grabbing my purse. "I think it's time to go."   
  
……………   
  
Dean's car was very large and very rusty and very orange. While Dean loaded the wheelchair into the trunk and helped Firenze into the back seat, I stood and stared at it. "You can't possibly drive that thing. It's – it's like a big boat! It'll take up the entire street."   
  
"Lavender, just get in."   
  
I did, somewhat nervous. I had never ridden in a car before – even Seamus hadn't known how to drive with all his Muggle connections. My mum had always said that they were ridiculous and that people crashed in them all the time and that's how Muggles managed to thin themselves out. But, then again, there were such things as broomstick crashes as well. And Apparation collisions. I once accidentally Apparated to work and knocked right into Fran.   
  
It really wasn't so bad.   
  
Dean really exaggerates when he brings it back up to tease me.   
  
The scratches on the window-upholstery from my fingernails aren't noticeable at _all_.   
  
Anyway, we had to stop a little bit away and take the Underground, which was okay to me because Seamus and his parents had dragged me on there a long time ago, and I hadn't even thrown much of a fit then. I think I just don't like knowing exactly _how_ I'm being moved along.   
  
We walked around for a while, through a bit of greenery and out, me pushing Firenze in the wheelchair so his arms wouldn't get tired. A few people looked at him lingeringly but no one did so with suspicion, so I figured they were only reacting to how he looked. Like a Swede, I thought, or a Dane, with his nose and his mouth and his cool blue eyes.   
  
"So many people," Firenze marvelled. "I never imagined."   
  
"Wait until they all get out of their jobs; it's mad," Dean said.   
  
"How do you ever organise yourselves?"   
  
"We don't," Dean laughed. "I suppose that might be one of our biggest problems. People are chaotic." Right then he noticed a horde of Muggle women clamouring in front of a shop front. "See," he pointed. "Look at them."   
  
I stopped to look at the shop in question. "Oh, my, they're having a sale – they _never_ have sales in _that_ place, it's so posh and sophisticated and supposedly too good for that." My feet, as though acting of their own mind, started the trek towards the shop.   
  
An hour later, when I was loaded down with parcels, I spotted a very large shoe store with very gaudy posters in the windows, and was almost in the door when Dean stopped me. "What?" I asked.   
  
"Lavender," he said seriously. "There's only so much shopping a man can take. I know it's the world's greatest entertainment to you, but all the perfume and all the madwomen with their pocketbooks get to me after a while. Firenze and I are going to the pub."   
  
"Don't you dare get drunk, I'm not driving that wretched car—"   
  
"Of course not," he said. "I only need to sit."   
  
"All right." I scanned the street and noticed a tucked-away pub. "I'll meet up with you in that one in another hour – is that acceptable?" I mean, I only get so many chances to come into Muggle London and waste my hard-earned money on silly fashions.   
  
So they went off to the pub, presumably to reinforce their manliness or whatever it is that men do when they sit in a dingy little place together, and I went happily off to the next shop, which was actually a disappointment as the shoes weren't well-made at all.   
  
I ended up all the way in Harrods, which is far too expensive for me, but even people on diets are allowed to look at dessert menus in restaurants. I loved looking at the Muggles shopping in there – such a mixture of them! Ordinary ones trying desperately to look as though they shopped so elegantly all the time, extraordinary ones in odd clothes that would have looked strange even at a wizarding masquerade.   
  
It was in Harrods where I found the most exquisite dress, with shoes to match. Even Madam Malkin would have turned green with envy. This dress was black and sleek and elegant and precisely the sort of thing that would have Parvati steaming with jealousy. I pictured smoke coming out of her ears and had to suppress a smile. And the shoes – strappy and classy and meant to wind all around your feet in the most marvellous way.   
  
Unfortunately, both were _so_ expensive.   
  
But, hey, a girl only lives once, and Muggle money never feels like real money, anyhow. All that paper and numbers; it's like having a playset of Galleons when you're a child. Deciding to buy them before I could talk some sense into myself, I took the shoes and the dress to the nearest saleslady.   
  
"Would you like a complimentary colours session?" the saleslady asked as she wrapped up my new things and I counted the Muggle money in my purse, trying to look as though I did so every day. "Free with purchase today."   
  
"Colours?" I echoed.   
  
"Yes, they're lovely, our ladies know exactly what makes everyone look stunning."   
  
_Stunning_ sounded like a great adjective to me, so I let the saleslady direct me to the cosmetics section, where I was immediately set upon by a dozen or so Muggle women, all of whom seemed frantic and slightly mad. Colours turned out to mean that you get loaded up with make-up by cooing ladies. One of them wore a lipstick the colour of blueberries and had her eyes shadowed in orange; I had to wonder if this was such a good idea and was concerned I would end up looking like Celestina Warbeck when she quite unfortunately decided to give herself a gruesome rock makeover.   
  
When they finally pulled away and showed me my reflection, my mouth fell open.   
  
It was awesome. I looked like a Muggle film star who slept on silk sheets twelve hours a day and never had to worry her pretty little head about anything. "I could _never_ be this good with charms," I gasped.   
  
"What was that, dear?"   
  
"Oh – I said I could never do this much with Mug—er, make-up."   
  
The blue-lipped woman frowned, obviously thinking that I was a bit batty, which really is a rich thought coming from someone who looked positively like someone had hit her mouth with a bad Freezing Hex and then refused to counter it.   
  
"It's brilliant, I mean," I said politely.   
  
"Well, would you like to purchase some of the products we used; there's one that's really a very—"   
  
"Er – no, sorry, I'm already late for a meet-up."   
  
Ha. I love finding new and brilliant ways to avoid pushy salespeople.   
  
I had strayed far from the pub, and, loaded down with things as I was, it took me a while to get there; it was nearly three o'clock when I entered through the front doors. It was a typical sort of pub – a mishmash of signs, wood panelling, grouchy men at small tables and a miserable old coot of a bartender scowling at everyone.   
  
I spotted Dean and Firenze at a corner table; the wheelchair was folded up and leaning against the wall nearby. I could overhear their conversation as I walked towards them.   
  
"It's tied at the moment." Dean was trying to explain the football match on television to Firenze. Muggle television disturbs me; I can never get used to how they all crowd around it as though it's their version of a crackling fireplace. "See, the red-and-white, that's Arsenal, they just got called offside, and – oh, look, they're really pissed about it!"   
  
Firenze only looked confused.   
  
I followed Dean's eyes to the screen, where apparently the great entertainment was two men screaming red-faced at one another. I have never understood the male obsession with silly sports. I walked closer to their table and slid into the chair beside them. "Don't worry if you don't understand, Firenze – it's probably better that you don't become one of those ridiculous louts who has to check the scores in the paper every day."   
  
I am very proud that I didn't mention Seamus, who was of course one of those ridiculous louts, with his overwhelming need to see how Pride of Portree fared in every morning's _Daily Prophet_.   
  
Dean shot me a dirty look, which changed into a surprised one. "Don't you look different," he said. "Were you attacked by the Harrods ladies?"   
  
"Right in one, and I think they did a fine job."   
  
"Yes, but it looks so common."   
  
"_Common_? Dean—"   
  
"Centaurs have a philosophy," Firenze interrupted. "The females who bother with silly adornments – flowers in their hair or berries to redden their cheeks – are best married to the males with no imagination or depth."   
  
"Right, Firenze," Dean said heartily. "You managed to say that without it sounding like an insult. I was going to say that you looked boring and ordinary, like any sort of girl on the street."   
  
I rolled my eyes. "I have to admit, I'm baffled as to whether I should be offended or flattered just now, but I think I'll fix that by getting something to drink."   
  
"Do not follow Mr Thomas' suggestions," Firenze said earnestly, lifting up a nearly-full pint I assumed Dean had brought him, judging from the two empty glasses in front of Dean himself. "It reminds me of rotting roots."   
  
"It's an acquired taste," Dean protested.   
  
"Perhaps after one loses his sense of taste."   
  
I had to hide a smile on my way up to the bar. I'd like to think that I'm not a woman easily complimented, but the fact that they seemed to like scruffy-disorganised-astronomer Lavender was heartening. Perhaps all men weren't prats and I was lucky enough to know two of the possible dozen or so exceptions.   
  
I stood there for a moment, thinking of what I wanted to drink, when abruptly I got that creepy, tingling feeling you get when you know someone is looking at you. I turned my head—   
  
Oh, God, somebody up there _hated_ me so—   
  
—and there was none other standing there but Seamus himself, _sans_ Parvati.   
  
Of all the Muggle bars in all of Muggle London! To think that there are actual people out there who think things happen by chance. Uh-uh. Anything this twisted really has to be governed by some ornery heavenly body.   
  
It. Was. So. Awkward. We stared at one another for about a minute before I opened my mouth. It was the first time I'd seen him without her, apart from the disastrous begging session. I had begun to think that he and Parvati had been magicked together at the hip. _All right, Lavender, remember: you are aloof and cool_. "So, Seamus," I said, "what the hell are you doing here?"   
  
"Hello, Lavender," he said. "I came to relax – Parvati was on about some shoe bargain." Damn her. I swear, ten years or so of being best friends gives you this wretched unconscious mental connection. "You look – very well."   
  
_Ha_, I thought triumphantly. That proved he was one of the men with no imagination or depth that Firenze had – oh, no. _Firenze_.   
  
Seamus must have seen that Jarvey-in-wandlight look on my face because his own expression flickered rapidly from surprise to minor anger. "Why are _you_ here, Lavender?"   
  
"Oh – I just thought I'd come get pissed in the middle of the day, that's all." I shuffled over a little, hoping to block Dean and Firenze from Seamus' view. For once in my life, I wished I were fatter.   
  
"You look remarkably sober."   
  
"Well, I'm a heavy drinker now, you see. It takes a while." Oh, _geez_, I say the most wretchedly stupid things! I really need to work on becoming a convincing liar.   
  
Perhaps I should have asked Seamus for lessons. Heh.   
  
"Why are you lying?"   
  
"No, really, I've been trying to get a support group started for wizard alcoholics and everything, sort of like the Muggles have. Hello, my name is Lavender Brown, and I'm married to the drink, that type of thing." I get desperately idiotic when I'm panicking. All I could think was _please, please, do not let him see Dean and Firenze_.   
  
But apparently my excuses weren't too rock-solid because he brushed right past me and his eyes fell on them sitting at the table. I prayed for the ability to sink into the floor and live the rest of my life as a subterranean cave dweller. At first, Seamus didn't notice Firenze because his gaze landed on Dean.   
  
"Thomas!" he said, half-running to Dean. "What are you playing at?"   
  
Dean, who had still been fixed on the Arsenal match, looked at Seamus and immediately assessed the problem. He leapt out of his chair and leaned in front of Firenze, so as to block him.   
  
I followed, breathless. "He's married to the drink, too; we're lapsing into our bad habits—" I began.   
  
"We only decided to have a quiet day in London," Dean interrupted. "Not in that way, mind, but we haven't been friends as much as we used to ever since – well, you know."   
  
"Oh," Seamus said. And – the stars help me – I couldn't help but feel a little twist in my heart at the expression, as though he wanted nothing more than to sit down and have a pint with us and laugh like old times in Hogsmeade. He just looked desperately lonely, longing – or else I was making it all up inside my head.   
  
Tragically, though, Seamus _did_ sit down, and looked straight at Firenze.   
  
I have horrible, terrible, unbelievabable luck.   
  
"Professor?" Seamus gasped, his eyes wide.   
  
"Mr Finnegan," Firenze said, obviously uneasy. He looked at me, but I guess I was no help because I was probably white-faced and chewing holes into my bottom lip (which tasted like the waxy lipstick from the Harrods ladies).   
  
"What in the world—"   
  
"It's a long story," all three of us said at the same time.   
  
"Suffice it to say," I added, "that it's not one I want certain Patil ears hearing. You can't go off telling people about this – you know about centaurs."   
  
"But the Ministry—"   
  
"Hang the Ministry," I said impatiently. "He's Firenze, Seamus, he's not one of the centaurs who fought in the war."   
  
"I know, but what a situation—you could be arrested—"   
  
"I won't be."   
  
"I would appreciate," Firenze said icily, "if you both stop talking about me as though I were not sitting right next to you."   
  
"Right. Sorry, Firenze." I leaned across the table and pointed accusingly at Seamus. "Bottom line. Seamus Horatio Finnegan, I swear—"   
  
I was interrupted by a sudden spout of laughter from Dean. "_Horatio_? No wonder you never told me that one, mate."   
  
"Shut up, Dean!" Seamus growled.   
  
Irked at the interruption, I poked my finger even closer to Seamus; it practically squashed his nose. "I swear," I said, pressing onward and speaking through menacing clenched teeth, "if you say one word of this to anyone – and I mean _anyone_ – I will personally march to your front door and use a Blasting Charm in such a manner that'll ensure that you never, _ever_ have another child!"   
  
Seamus, Dean, and Firenze all wore equally appalled expressions.   
  
"Understand?" I said.   
  
"Yeah," Seamus squeaked.   
  
"I mean, do you promise?"   
  
"I promise."   
  
People were beginning to turn round and look at us, so I folded my hands neatly on the table and smiled regally. "Good."   
  
"I – er – I have to go," Seamus said uncomfortably, shifting his gaze from me to Firenze to Dean, and then back again. "Parvati – meeting me – soon. Dean – I'll – er – I'll write to you later, mate."   
  
Bastard. He was worrying about that Blasting Charm and I knew it.   
  
He scrambled out of the pub; we all watched him leave silently. Then Dean hit his fist on the table and began to laugh. "Horatio," he repeated. "That was beautiful. I'll have something to rib him about for all eternity. Oh, Lavender, bless you."   
  
Firenze and I weren't laughing. We exchanged an uneasy glance – neither of us trusted Seamus' word as much as Dean did.   
  
……………   
  
In the evening I was still worried. Dean had gone home, Firenze was reading again, and I was trying to make supper – vegetable soup – but I kept running terrible scenarios over and over in my head. Parvati is a very clever woman. And it didn't seem impossible to me that she would sense Seamus' being out of sorts and proceed to browbeat him until he told her what was bothering him. She once needled an entire date synopsis out of me – I swear the woman has hidden powers of hypnosis or something. Truly, I hadn't _meant_ to tell her about sneaking into the rosebushes, and then the whole ruddy _school_l—   
  
And, of course, I cut my finger just then, while distractedly chopping a carrot into slices. "Ouch!" I shouted, and threw my hand under the sink faucet to rinse it. "Bloody useless clumsy stupid buggering horrible – argh!"   
  
Firenze set down his book and wheeled over. "Are you all right?"   
  
"Yes, I'm just preoccupied and also a ridiculous spazzy idiot." I started digging in my pocket for my wand, but before I could get it out to perform the proper healing spell, Firenze calmly drew my injured hand down and wrapped one palm around the cut finger.   
  
"What are you doing?" I asked.   
  
He didn't answer; he had that screwed-up look of concentration on his face again, as though he were trying to focus on one thing only. It took perhaps fifteen seconds, and then he uncurled his hand to reveal my finger, seamless and unmarred, as though it had never been cut.   
  
I examined it for a moment. "Thanks – your healing magic?"   
  
"All centaurs have it."   
  
"That's fascinating." I flexed the finger, it was perfect. "Without a wand or anything. Incredible."   
  
"Well, we'd have trouble finding a place to stash wands, you see."   
  
I grinned. "Can you just will things to heal like that?"   
  
"Some things," he said cryptically. "Other wounds are beyond our capabilities." He looked past me, at the interrupted carrot. "Would you like some help?"   
  
"I don't want you chopping _your_ fingers off," I said.   
  
He looked mildly affronted. "I know how to use a knife, Lavender. Humans aren't the only species who have managed to invent tools."   
  
So I placed a cutting-board in his lap with the rest of the carrots and he got to methodically chopping away. "What do centaurs use knives for?" I asked casually, trying not to picture any sort of violent ritual.   
  
"Cutting through underbrush, hacking through roots." He stacked a cut carrot into a perfectly neat little pile. "Ordinary things. We do not have occasional stabbings, if that's what you are thinking."   
  
"I wasn't," I said quickly. I took the carrots from him and added them to the boiling pot. "Should only take about ten minutes." I leaned on the counter with my head bowed down.   
  
"Are you concerned about Mr Finnegan?" Firenze asked suddenly.   
  
"Aren't you?"   
  
"Certainly," he said. "I am not fool enough to think that all wizards will accept me as kindly as you and Mr Thomas have, and if he concerns you, as you knw him so well, that gives me all the more reason to worry."   
  
"I see," I said slowly. "Well, whatever happens, I won't let anyone come after you with torches blazing and pitchforks readied." The joke fell flat; Firenze only frowned. "I'm not serious, Firenze – besides, Seamus might be a philandering prat, but I think he can keep a secret. He's not that weak-minded."   
  
"You know him better than I."   
  
But the thing was – damn my stupid overthinking – did I really know Seamus all that well? I certainly had never pegged him as a cheater until I quite literally opened the door on the evidence. Perhaps I had a bit of a blind spot when it came to the Great and Exalted Prat. "Yes, that's right," I said reassuringly, giving him a smile.   
  
"What would happen to you?"   
  
"What, if the Ministry found you here or something?" I recalled what Seamus had said – that I could get arrested. Perhaps Firenze was bothered by that.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I don't know. Don't worry. I'm not even sure if centaurs are still classified as Dark enemies or anything, but I'd rather not take that chance. I highly doubt they've ever had to deal with centaur-sympathisers before, as I am probably a pioneer in that respect." It was something I didn't particularly want to dwell on. The pot began to whistle and steam up; I stirred it absently. "Firenze, where were you, exactly, during the war? After you left your teaching post?"   
  
"I didn't fight."   
  
"I didn't say you had. I think better of you."   
  
He sighed, resigned. "I was in self-imposed exile, to go along with my true exile. There was no need for me to be at Hogwarts anymore, and no way I could return to the Forbidden Forest, so I suppose I stayed out of the way – one more example of my cowardice." He closed his eyes briefly. "I came upon the centaurs in Ateratra by accident, some time after the defeat of Voldemort, and I lied to them about where I had come from, and that is how they accepted me – not quite part of that herd, but still someone to be included."   
  
"They didn't know about the banishment?"   
  
"They read about me in the stars – or, more accurately, read what they could. They saw strife and conflict in my past, but they attributed that to the wizarding war, assuming I had played a part, and I made no attempt to correct them. Once Padear thought that he saw a betrayal foretold, dealing with me. I convinced him that he had read it wrong, but he turned out to be rather accurate."   
  
I smiled crookedly. "I still don't like him."   
  
Firenze only shook his head.   
  
"At any rate," I said with a wink, "you needn't worry about Seamus. I'm prepared to make good on that Blasting Charm threat, if need be."   
  
"How brutal."   
  
"Damn straight." But the kidding was forced, and the prospect of Seamus telling someone hung thick between us. Firenze was probably able to see right through me; I'm very transparent when I don't want to be and he wasn't stupid and probably knew that my jokes and soothing comments were only meant to placate him – and me, too.   
  
I took the pot off the stove and served out two bowls. We ate our soup in silence, both of us too absorbed in serious thought to think of idle conversation, both of us too anxious and edgy to make polite small talk about books and astronomy.   
  
And then the first knock on the door came.


	6. Part Six

> ……………   
  
**Part Six**   
  
……………   
  
The person standing on my front step as though she owned it was one I quite disdainfully recognized – frizzy hair, overlarge glasses with stuck-on rhinestones, and teeth that hadn't seen a whitening charm since the days of Merlin himself. "Ms Skeeter," I said politely. "What brings you here?"   
  
We both well knew the answer. I gritted my teeth into a smile that probably looked pretty horrendous. The sky had just gotten dark – so that made it, what? Four or five hours after my very impressive threatening of The Prat? _Seamus, I am going to kill you._   
  
As a side note, I have heretofore decided to refer to Seamus as The Prat, which is capitalised because it gives it a sort of notoriety. Like The Boy Who Lived, except pratlike instead of noble. Heh.   
  
"You know my name," Rita said.   
  
"Yes, well, muckrakers _do_ get rather infamous."   
  
Her painted mouth curved into a simper. "May I come in?"   
  
Ugh! She had such a smug little look on her face. "You certainly may _not_," I told her icily. "I'm trying to have a quiet dinner. Why don't you go make up stories about top Ministry officials or Celestina Warbeck or whatever it is that you do?"   
  
She put on this insulted look that made her look like a puckered owl. "I hope you do know, Miss Brown, that I will inform the Department of Magical Law Enforcement _and_ the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures if you don't start being a little more co-operative."   
  
Somehow, I managed to keep my smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you need to wander back into the St Mungo's ward you came from," I couldn't help adding. I swear, sometimes I'm too snippy for my own good.   
  
"You rude little snipe—"   
  
"Get off my property. This instant."   
  
I think I must have looked particularly scary because she obeyed, scurrying off into the night. I slammed the door shut and took a deep breath, but not a few moments later, another knock came. This time I charmed the door to see through it without having to greet the person. It was a young man with a quill and notepaper – another damned reporter. And, hell, Sara Barnes was already hovering in the background, looking altogether too interested.   
  
"I'm not having visitors tonight!" I shouted.   
  
His faint voice responded. "But ma'am—"   
  
Ha! As though I'd open the door to some little snot who calls me _ma'am_. As calmly as I could, I walked back into the kitchen, where Firenze was still waiting with his customary bewildered expression. "I want you to go into my bedroom and shut the door," I said, with as ordinary a tone as I could muster. "Don't get in view of the window."   
  
"Why—"   
  
"Because I can still deny you're here, that's why. All I have to do is paint Seamus as a nutcase who'll say anything to besmirch my good name." Really, _besmirch_ is a word you don't get to use very often. "It's less of a stretch, actually, than me harbouring a centaur."   
  
"Was it the Ministry at the door?"   
  
"No, the press." At least we didn't have to worry about the law yet. Rita Skeeter and her ilk couldn't break down my door, but the Ministry sure had the authority. "Now go."   
  
He did, and I went around the house as quickly as I could, placing Privacy Charms on the windows and the best wards I could on the door. My heart was hammering – geez, that's not just a cliché used in bad novels, I tell you, it really feels like someone's nailing boards together in your ribcage when you're freaked out like I was.   
  
When I was finished with the spells, I darted into the bedroom, drew the curtains as surreptitiously as I could, then sat on the bed with Firenze. I hugged one of the pillows against me.   
  
"What'll happen when the Ministry comes?"   
  
"If they come, Firenze."   
  
"Either way – what will happen?"   
  
I racked my brain for an answer, but the only thing that came to mind was what happened to all the goblins who rebelled in the war – even the innocent ones. And those were just _goblins_. "You would probably stand trial for war crimes."   
  
"Would they convict me?"   
  
Once again, I was struck by how desperate his situation was. Asking me for expertise – the poor bastard. "I don't know," I said honestly. "People – well, people are still angry about what your herd did in the war. We expect centaurs to stay out of things altogether – you're meant to hate us – and sometimes people won't be satisfied until someone is punished."   
  
"I understand that. When a family in the herd is shamed, the head of that herd need not offer himself as the one to be punished. It may be a son or daughter." He gave a short, humourless laugh. "I suppose I am the unfortunate son of the Forbidden Forest."   
  
"If you start that self-deprecating repentance I-deserve-all-this stuff again, I am going to have to yell at you," I said.   
  
He shook his head. "I do not deserve this."   
  
"Well," I said quietly, "that's personal progress, at least."   
  
After that, there was nothing more to say; we only kept a quiet vigil, both of us staring emptily at the walls and floors. I kept myself entertained by constructing elaborate revenge fantasies on Seamus, including one where Parvati was somehow a Lethifold in disguise and I let it spill to the press.   
  
I really am crazy.   
  
Neither of us slept a wink that night.   
  
……………   
  
Mrs Greenwich came early next morning with a copy of the _Prophet_ in her talons. With Firenze looking over my shoulder, I unrolled it and we both read the first story together. There was absolutely no need to flip through the pages; a picture of my house, ominously backlit, was splashed across the front page.   
  
_YOU-KNOW-WHO'S FOLLOWER HIDING IN GODRIC'S HOLLOW?  
Highly reclusive centaur harboured by dangerous witch   
  
Exclusive for the Daily Prophet by Rita Skeeter   
  
It has come to the Prophet's attention that not all of Voldemort's centaur army has been defeated or driven back into their herds. A protected source told this reporter yesterday that a centaur from the infamous Forbidden Forest herd has been living in Godric's Hollow with one Lavender Brown, 25, astronomer under Professor Francesca Vega.   
  
Brown refused to comment yesterday evening, apart from childishly insulting this reporter. She appeared wild and disarrayed. The centaur in question has been living in hiding for years after the war, first entering under false pretenses into the neutral Ateratra herd, then attempting to hide himself in the wizarding world with the help of the devious Miss Brown.   
  
"It sounds like something Lavender would do," said neighbour Sara Barnes, 31. "She has always seemed a bit batty. I mean, she talks to her cat as though it's a real person. It's really very insane."   
  
The Forbidden Forest centaurs became infamous in the latter stages of the war against Voldemort, when they inexplicably sided with evil and became responsible for the murders of countless wizards. Speculation at this point is more than warranted. Do this centaur and Miss Brown plan to have us return to those dark days? Certainly the Ministry should act against these two subversives before anything grave can happen.   
  
_"Filthy rag," I spat. "And to think it was meant to get better after it lost that wretched libel case." I flung the paper across the room. "We have to get out of here right _now_, before the Ministry shows up to arrest you. And me."   
  
He got into his chair as quickly as he could and I pushed him to my fireplace, both of us forgetting all about grabbing anything but the clothes on our backs. There was only one place I could think of to go, and I grabbed a handful of Floo powder and threw it into my dying fire. "Dean Thomas' flat!" I shouted.   
  
The flames flickered on as though nothing had happened. Mystified, I grabbed another handful of Floo powder and tossed it into the fire. "Dean Thomas' flat," I said again, not bothering to hide the urgency in my voice. Still, nothing happened. "Oh, no," I breathed.   
  
"What is it?" Firenze asked.   
  
"I think they've shut off my Floo portal."   
  
"What?"   
  
"And I can't Apparate because _you_ can't," I said desperately. "Oh – oh, no." I bit my lip and thought for a moment. "We'll have to take the broom and leave your wheelchair behind."   
  
"But Dean lives in a Muggle neighbourhood, does he not?"   
  
"We don't have another choice. The Statute of Secrecy can hang for all I care." I used to wand to Disillusion both of us and made a quick half-hearted attempt on the poor Comet.   
  
I poked my head out the back garden door, slightly afraid that a horde of Magical Law Enforcement wizards would swoop down on me, but, thanks to the privacy of my garden, we could escape unnoticed. Firenze loped after me, half-walking and half-tripping like a colt taking its first wobbling steps, and we both set off on the old Comet as quickly as we could. Our food from the night before still sat on the kitchen table; our books were still strewn around, opened and dog-eared.   
  
Up in the air, Firenze spoke in my ear. "They will find us at Dean's."   
  
"I know – it's only temporary – we'll do something. Don't worry."   
  
I felt him shift uncomfortably behind me. "I would not have you take all the worry for yourself," he said quietly. The words were almost lost in the roar of the wind.   
  
"Worry, then," I corrected, and felt myself smiling inexplicably. I could no longer see my house. We rose up into the clouds, both of us getting soaked, but it was better than risking being seen by wizards with trained eyes.   
  
After thirty minutes or so, we made it to Dean's flat. I landed on the balcony, whipping my dripping hair away from my face as I rapped on the glass door leading inside. Dean was there almost immediately and he didn't look particularly shocked.   
  
"Lavender! Have you seen the news?" Then he hit his head with his palm, looking chagrined. "Sorry, sorry – stupid question, I suppose, since you're here and Disillusioned."   
  
I propped the Comet against his wall and started stalking around the room. "Yes, I have seen the news, and I was about to go over to Seamus' and set his house on fire and then dance around it."   
  
"Oh, Lord." Dean stopped me by putting a hand on each of my shoulders. "Listen, Lavender, it wasn't him."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I was over there this morning – right after I saw – and was prepared to tear him a new – well, you know – but it wasn't him."   
  
"How do you know?" I demanded.   
  
"He told me."   
  
"He told you, and you believed him? Is that what you mean? I'll tell you what, Dean, Seamus Finnigan is not exactly the most honest person in the world!"   
  
"Lavender!" Dean said angrily. "I know Seamus has made mistakes, but he is still my friend, and I have known him for years, and I have got to the point where I can tell if he's lying or not! I swear to you, Lavender, it wasn't him who went to the press and the Ministry. He might be a bit weak-minded at times, but he isn't hateful."   
  
"Then who _was_ it?"   
  
"What am I, a Seer?"   
  
"There's no need to be smart," I snapped.   
  
"Sorry." Seeing my mutinous face, he sighed. "I said I was sorry, Lavender, and yes, you may stay here for the time being – but I don't think that's the best idea. They'll be at my door soon enough. I imagine you were too harried to think to burn your recent correspondence with me."   
  
"Oh, _hell_."   
  
"That's what I thought," he said grimly. "Come on, you'll both have to dry off and hopefully by then there'll be somewhere for you to go." He ushered me into his room and left me with a big West Ham T-shirt, and practically pushed Firenze into the bathroom with something equally Muggle. While I changed, I heard him talking into one of those strange telephones, and I dressed as quickly as I could – though it was hard to figure out the infernal T-shirt because the sleeves could also accommodate my head – so I could get out and hear who he was talking to.   
  
"Yes, Lavender, who you met the other day," he was saying. "She's in trouble – no, nothing against the law, at least not how the law should be – never mind that – all right – fine – I'll send her through the fireplace." He placed the funny thing back on its receiver and turned to me. "That was my Mam, she says you can stay with her. For now," he warned. "It's still not a great solution."   
  
"They're probably ransacking my house this very minute," I moaned, hoping that the Ministry would have the decency to not riffle through my knickers and rather obsessive collection of Weird Sisters magazines. Then I gasped. "Oh, please, let them feed Mr Peabody and Mrs Greenwich!"   
  
"You're so odd," Dean said. "You have bigger things to worry about."   
  
Just then, Firenze came out, still staggering. Automatically, I went to help him, even though he was managing – painfully managing, but managing nonetheless.   
  
"Ready?" Dean asked, passing me his pot of Floo powder.   
  
"Where are we going?" Firenze asked.   
  
"Dean's mum's," I said quickly, taking the powder. Dean sent us off with a wave and we came tumbling into Augusta's living room, still panicked and paranoid.   
  
She was there waiting for us, and helped Firenze to his feet when he struggled on the hearth rug. "Where's your wheelchair, dear?" she asked.   
  
"We had to leave it behind," I said.   
  
Augusta raised an eyebrow. "In that much of a hurry?"   
  
I smiled grimly. "Considering that the law was liable to show up at my door any minute, I'd say yes." Then I closed my eyes and craned my neck downwards. "Thank you."   
  
"You're welcome," she said simply. "I trust my boy, and if he says you two don't deserve the trouble you're in, then I believe him." She still had Firenze by the elbow, so she settled him down into an armchair. "You're getting better at walking," she observed.   
  
"Thank you," Firenze said, with an involuntary yawn. I took a good look at him. He was paler than usual, his hair still stringy-wet from flying through the clouds. I imagined that I looked very much the same – what a pathetic pair we must have seemed like to Augusta!   
  
She must have thinking along the same lines. "You both look tired as hell."   
  
"Neither of us slept," I admitted. "I – I don't think I could at the moment, still." I get horribly insomniac-like when I worry about things. After the whole Seamus debacle I didn't sleep for weeks. I'm surprised no one asked me to use the hollows under my eyes as storage space.   
  
"What's happened? Dean said something about a newspaper article—"   
  
"I'll—" I was about to say _I'll tell you all about it later_, but my gaze fell on Firenze on the armchair. He was fast asleep and curled up. "Yes," I said quietly. "You see, most wizards aren't too friendly to centaurs, even ones that have been transformed into humans – er, not that it's ever happened before or anything. So Dean and I were trying to keep Firenze a secret, but – well, it turned out not to work."   
  
Augusta's face worked a little, as though she were straining to understand. "Did someone spill the secret?"   
  
"They have to have done," I said heavily. "I thought it was Seamus – he knew, he found out just yesterday – but Dean swears it wasn't him and I trust Dean and hope he's got Seamus' number all right. I mean, I've certainly got a biased view of the man myself."   
  
Augusta chuckled, and then, in a flash, her face turned serious. "What does that mean for him?" she asked, indicating Firenze.   
  
"He would probably face a trial and – to be honest – he'd probably be punished for things he didn't take part in from our war." I clenched my fists at my sides – oh, how it hurt to say that out loud! I looked at Firenze and knew instantly that I would not let him take any sort of fall for his fellow centaurs, even though I could definitely see him doing something that stupid and calling it noble. Men are funny like that – they think the most ridiculous things are honourable, when sometimes it's just the best path to watch out for your back and not ruffle any feathers.   
  
"And you?" Augusta asked gently, startling me out of my reverie. She had gone into the kitchen and was back with a tea-kettle and a plate of little sandwiches, though I had never in my life felt less like eating.   
  
"What about me?"   
  
"How did you get caught up in this? He was staying with you, wasn't he?"   
  
"Oh." I frowned. Of course she'd want to know. "Better take a seat," I advised. "It's a bit of a long story and I tend to ramble on and on about the most irrelevant details." So I told her the whole thing, still fearing that the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would bust through her front door and take Firenze away and throw me in Azkaban for not telling them about him – just for good measure.   
  
"So," Augusta said slowly, after I had finished. "His own herd wants him to suffer?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"And you wizards have no love for centaurs, either?"   
  
"Right. The grudges from the war run deep in most circles." I thought of the other centaurs I had met, and I found I could not exactly hate wizardkind for its mistrust of them. Firenze really was an anomaly.   
  
"Poor fellow."   
  
"Indeed." And we both sat there, looking at him, both of us with our own impressions of his grief. "He has nowhere to go. I bet they expected that he would just die in the Forest Ateratra – but then they didn't count on me, did they?"   
  
Very few people do. Their loss. Heh.   
  
……………   
  
Firenze woke in the middle of the night, after Augusta had gone to bed. I was sitting at another chair, reading an odd Muggle book under one of their odd electrical lights, when I creepingly became aware of his unwavering eyes on me. I closed the book and looked back at him.   
  
"Have you not slept?" he asked.   
  
"I couldn't if I tried," I said honestly, laying my head against the back of the chair. I hate that feeling – being weary but not sleepy. "I'm frankly amazed that you could."   
  
"I wish," he said, and then he stopped, as though the words were too large and awkward to get out. He began again. "I wish that everything could go back to the way it was – not even before this, or before you coming to Ateratra. I wish I could go back to before I ever decided to leave the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps the stars meant for me to remain there, so that I could try and exercise some control over the rest of the herd."   
  
Oh, geez, again with the martyr stuff. "Firenze—"   
  
"Perhaps," he whispered, his eyes closing, "I might have kept them from turning to Voldemort, and perhaps the war would not have gone on as long as it did – and perhaps there would now be peace between centaurs and humans."   
  
"Firenze," I said sternly. "We've been through this. I know – I can tell you – it's dangerous to live on possibilities that don't exist anymore. We're stuck where we are." I flashed him a smile. "Whether you like it or not."   
  
Seriously, he was in need of a permanent Cheering Charm.   
  
"We cannot stay here long," he whispered.   
  
"I know. I won't let Dean and Augusta put themselves in danger for us. The Ministry aren't stupid, they'll be able to track us down here eventually. Hell, one of Dean's letters even invited us here, so once they dig that out of the mess, we're toast."   
  
"So we must leave."   
  
I looked at him seriously. "I think we should now, before someone gets hurt."   
  
To my surprise, he shook his head. "No. It would be a discourtesy to Dean and his mother – we must tell them." Then he forced himself to his feet and came over to me, perching himself on the edge of my armchair. His fingers dug into the upholstery to maintain his balance; I pretended not to notice. "And you, Lavender, should sleep before we go running off into the unknown."   
  
"I won't be able to, I told you."   
  
"I will not have my partner in crime falling asleep in exile," he said softly, sternly, and – I imagine before he could think better of it – he threaded his long fingers through my hair, just for a moment, and then returned, with great effort, to where he had been sitting.   
  
For all the times I had touched him – helping him move and whatnot – it was still a curious sensation to have him touch me. "I – er—" God, I was stuttering like Neville Longbottom in a Potions class. _Real brilliant, Lavender_. "I – I'll sleep if you promise to cut the self-deprecating stuff."   
  
He lifted one eyebrow. "For that, it had better be a full eight hours."   
  
"Deal," I said, trying to curl myself up into a comfortable sleeping position. Augusta had offered me a bed, but I didn't want to venture upstairs and possibly wake her up with my loud, ungraceful walking. "As long as you try to smile once per day."   
  
His answering grimace wasn't really the best sign that he'd keep up his end of the bargain.


	7. Part Seven

> **Note**: I suppose I have no excuse here, except that I am very persnickety (I love that word!) and decided to revise this chapter again and again, as I'm picky about how I write conversation and this whole part is mainly conversation, and I changed a particular plotline around, and I also wanted to go back and fix some minor quibbles in the previous chapters. So, please, nobody kill me. I'm not so good with the angstier parts – damn them being so necessary to the story – and tend to rewrite them. (And come _on_, guys, mean e-mails are – well, _mean_!)   
  
Thanks for all the reviews; I'm continually wowed. **She's a Star**, thanks for recommending me in your profile. I came, I saw, I squee'd. And Harry and the Potters rule.   
  
……………   
  
**Part Seven**   
  
……………   
  
I woke up very uncomfortably and was immediately met with the frowning face of Dean Thomas hovering over me. Firenze was nowhere to be seen, which did not bode well for our plans to escape unnoticed. I was dimly aware of voices in the kitchen. "Morning," Dean said grimly. "Actually, more like afternoon."   
  
I flushed red. "I – er – I was tired."   
  
He plunked himself across from me and practically sank into his chair, looking altogether weary. I felt horrible. Poor Dean, trapped in all of it, and all because I'd wanted some lousy Muggle wheelchair. "How are you feeling?"   
  
"Stressed," I said mildly.   
  
He was quiet for a long moment. It was like he was giving me a minute wake up and relax and such before increasing my horrible stress-load. Which I suppose was awfully nice of him. Then he sighed. "I was questioned by the Magical Law Enforcement Squad this morning," he said. "Scared me senseless, too. I thought that one of them would pull out a flask of Veritaserum at any moment."   
  
"What did you tell them?"   
  
"I had to tell half-truths, because—"   
  
"Because they found your letters, and they know you know about Firenze," I finished. "And the one – about coming for supper here at your mum's house – it won't take them long to find out where your mum lives."   
  
"Yes, they asked me that. I had to lie and say she just moved."   
  
"So we'll leave this instant," I said automatically.   
  
"Hang on," Dean said, and he had a very peculiar expression on his face, as though he were steeling himself to do something, or as though he had just eaten something disgusting. "You're not going to go running off into the great unknown."   
  
"Oh, and what's your solution?"   
  
"Er—" He looked down at his hands. "You'll see. Let's go into the kitchen."   
  
Dean was behaving as though he were escorting a very fragile, unstable mental patient to the electric-shock room. In retrospect, I probably should have known what was coming. We went together into the kitchen, and, for one brief blessed second, everything seemed together. There was Augusta, who was brushing crumbs from the tablecloth, and Firenze, and then—   
  
Oh, hell. For a minute I thought I really had gone insane and was hallucinating because there was a very familiar sandy-haired man sitting next to Firenze. The Prat himself.   
  
"Dean Thomas," I said dangerously. "You did _not_ just bring Seamus here."   
  
"I wasn't the one who told the _Prophet_," Seamus said anxiously.   
  
"Yes, Dean's convinced me of that, but you're still a miserable, philandering—"   
  
"Lavender!" This came from both Firenze and Dean.   
  
I suppose the collective power of their shouts left me _slightly_ chagrined because I sat down, leaned back, folded my arms, and gave Seamus the patented Lavender Brown Evil Eye. "All right," I said crabbily. "_Someone_ better explain to me what's going on."   
  
"Simple," Dean said nervously from behind me. "You don't like each other. There's bad blood between you. No one would ever expect him to help you."   
  
"Least of all me," I muttered.   
  
"Surely you see the logic in this," Firenze said calmly. "Mr Finnigan is very unlikely to have Ministry officials knocking on his door looking for you – if, that is, you call him a prat as frequently in public as you do at home."   
  
Both Seamus and Dean stuffed their fists in their mouths, trying not to laugh. "Lavender, do you remember my parents' summer house?" Seamus asked, around his covered mouth.   
  
_Did I remember the summer house?_ No, of course not, it was only the place where the prat asked me to _marry_ him. My memory fails me! "Yeah," I said non-committally. "What about it?"   
  
"That's where you're going to hide," Seamus said importantly.   
  
"Uh-uh." I slid backward in my hair. "No – no way! Under absolutely no circumstances would I _ever_—"   
  
"This goes beyond some stupid ongoing fight you have with one another," Dean said, before I could really get going. "I'm not about to let you and Firenze just go wandering off. Seamus is a brilliant plan."   
  
"I can't believe you told him about this."   
  
"I read it in the news," Seamus said, apparently stung. "And I took the Floo to Dean's myself early this morning – I figured, since you were together in London – er – he would know what was going on."   
  
"What about Parvati?" I demanded.   
  
"Well, she knows, of course – it's all over the wireless – but I didn't tell her I'd seen you in London or that I'm here right now. Anyway, you hate me," he said reasonably. "I don't think the Ministry will expect me to help you."   
  
I tried to put the image of Parvati reacting to the news of my becoming a fugitive out of my mind. "I'm not staying with you!"   
  
"Blimey, no!" He was horrorstruck at the very prospect, which was rude, considering. "I'm going straight back to my own house once we get you settled in – how in the world would I be able to explain that to Parvati? _Oh, sorry, dear, we've both got to stop working indefinitely and hide in Ireland – that's okay, right?_ She'd have my head, Lavender."   
  
"Oh." It suddenly occurred to me that I was meant to go back to work the previous night. I couldn't worry about that, though – Professor Vega would obviously know what had happened, and hopefully her guilt over sending me to Ateratra would prevent me from being summarily sacked. "Well, then, I suppose—"   
  
Everyone looked approving. It was sort of condescending.   
  
"But it doesn't mean I'm happy about this!" I snapped.   
  
Dean's fist made an alarming return to his mouth.   
  
"You said it was all over the wireless," I said slowly. "I'd like to know what they're saying about me, if we have time. Kind of so I know what I'm up against."   
  
"Mum," Dean said, "do we still have that old wireless?"   
  
Augusta, who had been watching the proceedings with the air of someone reading an extremely interesting book, suddenly snapped to attention. "Oh – oh, yes, it's upstairs. I'll go and bring it down."   
  
We were quiet, listening the sounds of her shuffling around upstairs. I looked at Firenze and was surprised to see that he looked relatively calm; I had been expecting another sullen, silent face.   
  
Augusta came back into the kitchen clutching a big wireless in her arms. Even with my limited knowledge of all things Muggle, I could tell that it was pretty old, with one of those funny things Muggle use to play recorded music. I was interested in spite of myself and touched it when Augusta placed it down on the table. "Does it have those Muggle power things in it? Bogies?"   
  
"Batteries," Seamus corrected.   
  
Augusta turned the wireless on and it started to broadcast a Muggle station. Dean tapped it with his wand – "_Veneaudio_!" – and the crackling sounds of the Wizarding Wireless Network filled the kitchen. We listened to the last strains of the current song, and then the announcer's voice came on. "That was _You're Charming Me Crazy_, by the Pointy Hat Players. Number five on the charts this week, and climbing. Now, for our top stories—"   
  
"Good timing, mate," Seamus whispered.   
  
The announcer went on. "Lavender Brown, the Godric's Hollow witch accused of harbouring a dangerous centaur, is still at large this afternoon, according to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Well, I always wanted to be famous. "Department officials received word from _Daily Prophet_ insiders late last night that Brown has been hiding a Forbidden Forest centaur in her home for weeks. Unfortunately, recently-reinstated _Prophet_ reporter Rita Skeeter – who stood trial for defamation two years ago and was acquitted – approached Brown at her home before alerting the Ministry, thus allowing Brown to get away."   
  
And I never thought I'd be grateful to old Rita for anything.   
  
"Please note: if you see Brown, do not approach her. She is potentially dangerous and mentally unstable."   
  
"Hey!" I whapped the wireless with the back of my hand.   
  
"Just breaking now – the _Prophet_ itself received a statement yesterday from an undisclosed source. The text of the statement includes the following—" and here the announcer cleared his throat—"'It was never our intention to have him live; the traitor from the Forbidden Forest was meant to die in Ateratra. It is a disgrace to all centaurs to see one of our kind living as a human.'" The statement then names the location of Brown's home in Godric's Hollow."   
  
Then the announcer went babbling on about some other story, but the kitchen could have been silent, for all I noticed. Firenze and I only stared at one another, his bright blue eyes unfathomable, and I opened my mouth to say something, but his expression changed swiftly and I couldn't have understood him any clearer – _don't say a word, Lavender_.   
  
Firenze was on the verge of – something, I knew, and Dean, Augusta, and Seamus sensed it, too. Dean quietly charmed the radio off of the WWN, Augusta began to clear away the breakfast dishes, and Seamus gave a hearty, false laugh. "Well, shall we get moving? Get all your things."   
  
"We don't have any things," I said pointedly, still keen on antagonizing him a little – _what_? He deserved it! "You see, you tend not to pack the whole house when you're running from the law."   
  
"Right," Seamus said, rolling his eyes as we went into the living room. "You know, Lavender, it takes a special sort of person to act the way you do in the middle of a crisis."   
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"   
  
"It's a compliment on how much you aren't panicking," Dean supplied swiftly.   
  
Firenze was painfully quiet.   
  
"Well, then," Seamus said bracingly, taking a bit of Floo powder, "time to make our escape."   
  
"Wait!" Augusta came running into the living room with the huge old-fashioned wireless in her arms. "Here," she said, panting slightly, "take this with you. That is, if you can take it – er, through the fireplace." She smiled. "Sorry, but I can never get used to that method of travel. I'm always afraid my poor boy will accidentally catch fire."   
  
"_Mum_." Dean looked embarrassed.   
  
"Well, I am!" Augusta said. She made to unload the wireless on me. "Here, make sure you don't drop it, it's quite heavy."   
  
"Oh, I couldn't—"   
  
"Oh, just take it, Lavender," she said. "You'll need to hear the news, won't you?"   
  
"She's right," Dean said.   
  
"Thank you," I said graciously, and took the big, clunky wireless, which I had to hold out in front of me with both my arms wrapped around it. Firenze was lightly leaning against me – he was still not the world's best walker – and Seamus was tugging on my shirt to get me towards the fireplace.   
  
"Well," Dean said, "I would give you a good-bye hug, but you seem a little occupied at the moment."   
  
I grinned. I felt quite a bit better; it's always easier to deal with things when you have friends. The whole idea of running off without telling them seemed foolish. "You'll have to owe me one."   
  
We Flooed right to the summer house – where the weather was not all that summery in spite of it being late August – where Seamus had Apparated earlier in the morning to get the Floo fire going. I couldn't help but be touched at how he and Dean had thought out their plan. I set down the wireless. Firenze was still unnervingly silent, with the same shell-shocked expression on his face.   
  
"Lavender, can I talk to you outside for a moment?" Seamus asked, before I could go and talk to Firenze about what we had we had heard on the Wizarding Wireless Network.   
  
I glanced back at Firenze, who was still quiet and who had slumped down on the sofa like his bones had turned to mush. "Sure, Seamus," I said, too worried about Firenze to snipe back at him much.   
  
We went out on the front porch and Seamus closed the front door – carefully, making a show of it, as though he was preparing himself. "Look, Lavender," he said, staring down at his feet. "For what it's worth – I'm really, really sorry."   
  
"About what? This is perfect – I mean, the Ministry won't—"   
  
"No, not about that. I mean – you know, you and Parvati and me."   
  
"Oh." I was momentarily taken aback. "Good."   
  
"But – this is what I meant to say – I don't think you should go on hating me – I mean, we shouldn't go on hating one another. Especially if we're going to both stay friends with Dean. I reckon it would only be awkward."   
  
"Right."   
  
"So, what do you say?"   
  
"Friends, you mean?"   
  
"Well, yes." He shuffled his feet, then somehow worked up the courage to meet my eyes, which must have been a pretty formidable task because I was still giving off the Evil Eye. "I'm not saying it won't be really uncomfortable – because it will be – but if I could convince Parvati to go off trying to one-up you all the time—"   
  
I smiled – genuinely! "Ah, Seamus, that's what women do. Friendship is really only the other side of – er, arch-enemyship."   
  
"Yeah, you're all mad." He smiled back, and extended his hand. "So – an agreement?"   
  
"Well, I'd better say yes, or else you'll go running to the Ministry." I took his hand and shook it. Surprisingly enough, my hand did not burn instantly at the contact with the enemy. I took it as a good sign.   
  
He looked at me seriously. "I hope you know I wouldn't ever do that."   
  
"I know."   
  
"So – er – do you have any idea who it was? That statement on the radio?"   
  
I knew _exactly_ who it was, but that look Firenze had shot me back at Augusta's kitchen table was still working very well at shutting me up. "Don't know," I said – probably unconvincingly because Seamus was looking at me with a half-smirk. Then I changed the subject, "Listen, will you tell Dean – and his mum – thank you for me?"   
  
"Of course."   
  
"Goodbye, then, Seamus. And thank you, too."   
  
He held up his hands in mock protest. "What, no anger? No furious words? I really think I may have forced a reconciliation here, dear Lavender."   
  
I laughed. "You're still a prat."   
  
"And proud of it." He stepped off of the porch and – _pop_! – Apparated away.   
  
I stood outside there thinking about him for a time. I was beginning to get pretty philosophical about the whole debacle with Parvati and the Prat. I mean, sometimes things just _happen_. Men truly can be clueless creatures. I suppose it's entirely possible for someone to be a prat when it comes to messing up relationships with entirely wonderful, sane, balanced women – ha! – but to still be a decent enough person in everyday life.   
  
Everyday life, of course, being helping out a former fiancée and a centaur-turned-human escape from scapegoat-happy Ministry officials and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.   
  
I went around to the back of the house, which backed onto a pond and was admittedly very pretty, with flowers growing untended everywhere. I was standing in practically the same place I had been when Seamus had asked me to marry him, me close to the pond, him standing above me a little, the noise of his heedless parents from inside the house. It was different, standing there a time later, but I was shockingly not sad or angry. Like I said, I was only sort of – philosophical.   
  
In fact, one could even say that I was completely and totally Over It.   
  
Almost.   
  
"Lavender," I whispered, "you are cooling off in your old age."   
  
When I went back into the house, Firenze had not moved from his spot on the sofa. Not wanting to look at his face – which would, of course, be woeful – I went to stand behind him. "So – on the wireless – it was Padear's message, wasn't it?"   
  
There was really no need to ask. I would have recognized that self-important style anywhere, what with having heard it moments before a near-death experience. Firenze didn't reply, so I moved around and stood in front of him, and then sat on the wooden coffee table so I could face him directly.   
  
"They didn't know I was from the Forbidden Forest," Firenze said quietly, looking almost tearful. "I never told them. I thought I'd managed to trick them well enough."   
  
"Maybe they knew and never told _you_."   
  
"Perhaps," he said ironically, "they read it in the stars."   
  
"Can they do that?" I asked. "Wait – never mind. Why would Padear snitch on you? I thought you were all separate from our laws and systems and whatnot – it just seems so ridiculous."   
  
"You heard the wireless." His face was now pressed into his hands, so I couldn't see it. His voice was muffled. "They wanted me to die in the Forest – just like my old herd would have killed me if not for Hagrid's intervention, my new one would have left me to die if not for yours. I imagine it was unbearable for them – to think that I might have learned to be content as a human."   
  
"That's so – horrible." Just then, I would have given anything for the ability to strangle those lousy vindictive centaurs. "I mean – as though everything before this wasn't punishment enough! They couldn't leave you well enough alone, could they?"   
  
"Apparently not," he choked.   
  
I stood up, fully intent on going into a rage. "What sort of behaviour is that? It's absolutely childish – it isn't as though you were doing anything to them, living away from them and all. What does it matter to them if you're dead or alive?"   
  
"It is an affront to their honour and their pride," he said.   
  
"I'm sorry, Firenze, but I don't understand."   
  
"I didn't expect you to." He rose from his spot on the sofa, and walked a few steps in his slow, sloping, imperfect walk. I could tell that he had been crying.   
  
"I'm so sorry," I said again.   
  
"Do you mean to say that you feel sorry for me?" he asked.   
  
There was a dangerous edge to his voice that made me step back a little. "Yes," I said honestly. "I mean – I don't think you're weak – but I can't help but sympathize—"   
  
"I don't want you to," he said curtly.   
  
"It's not like I can help it!" I retorted.   
  
"I'm not someone to be pitied!" he thundered. "I'm a centaur!"   
  
"No, you're not!" I shouted, then clapped my hands over my mouth. I felt the blood drain out of my face. "Oh, God, Firenze, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"   
  
But he looked more weary than anything; all the abrupt anger seemed to flow straight out of him. "Yes, I am," he said quietly, correcting me. "If someone were to magic you into some other creature, would you cease to be human? You might have paws rather than hands, or scales rather than skin, but your mind would remain unchanged, and it would be forever conscious of what it once controlled – what it was _meant_control."   
  
His hands were shaking. Without thinking, I reached out to grab them and held them by the wrist, holding them as firmly as I could. "First off – and we've been through this – I can't help but feel sorry for you. It doesn't mean that I think you're some kind of lesser creature or anything. I would never, ever think that way. And second, you can't let Padear and the rest of your herd hurt you like this. By all means, entertain all the revenge-fantasies you want – I can assure you that they're quite satisfying – but, you know, they win if you just break down."   
  
Firenze just looked down at the floor, gritting his teeth.   
  
"I'm sorry if I'm ever insensitive. I can be that way. I'm horrible sometimes and I know it. But please don't think I'm not trying to help you – please don't think you can't talk to me. I mean," and here I tried out a wan smile, "I may not understand everything completely, but it's better to get things out instead of just keeping them bottled up." Inwardly I cursed Padear a hundred times for _this_ little setback. It dawned on me, then, though, that I could not keep forcing Firenze to read human books and the like – not when he could never really be human. I made up my mind to be a little more accommodating. "You _don't_ have to learn to be content as a human – seriously, most humans are miserable. Look at us! But – you know – wouldn't it be nice vengeance if you did anyway?"   
  
He gave a little laugh; halfway, it caught on a sob and then he began to cry again. It wasn't an undignified sort of crying, just a gentle sort of weeping, mostly quiet, and after a second I let go of his shaking wrists and just hugged him awkwardly.   
  
"Lavender?" he asked, after a while.   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"You have endured as much as I have – I am very sorry for you, too."   
  
"Well, we're a very sorry pair, aren't we?"   
  
He laughed again. I think it was genuine.


End file.
